Edutopia - August/September 2008 - (Page 47)

what’s next? Haifa, can search for survivors in collapsed buildings and perform maintenance in dangerous places such as nuclear reactors. Robots are already being used for heart and knee surgery. Driven by increased student interest, schools of education are beginning to take robotics seriously. Emporia State University, in Emporia, Kansas, now requires two instructionaltechnology courses that incorporate robotics as a useful tool for modeling teaching strategies. The courses emphasize social science as well as engineering. The result, say university of⇒cials, “allows the students to view robots as more than just a science lesson, and provides collaborative learning experiences that use higher-order thinking and learning styles.” Preservice teachers at Emporia work in collaborative groups— templates for those that will be replicated with their students—to construct computer-programmable Lego robots, in order to take into their classrooms an array of project-learning skills. Emporia is planning to partner with I Support Learning, which recently sponsored a Search and Rescue Robot Challenge for teams from the United States and China, a challenge now echoed, tragically, in the recent Sichuan earthquake. ence at Carnegie Mellon University, is one of the developers of a program called CS (Computer Science) Bots. “In high schools and colleges, there’s a signi⇒cant drop-off of interest in computer science,” Lauwers says. “In part, that’s because many students ⇒nd the initial work very boring. The idea behind CSBots is to allow students to program not a computer, which can be very dull, but a robot. They learn the same basic concepts working ANDROIDS AMONG US with a robot, but it’s much more Do robots have a place in the classroom? Tell us at interesting. And robots have an edutopia.org/poll-robots-classroom element of coolness with students that computers lack.” Lauwers points out that prebuilt robots used for the course can be purchased for as little as $150. “We put together a pilot program where we sent a robot to seven high school science teachers around the country,” he says. “We asked them to develop a curriculum using the robot, because we wanted to involve teachers from the beginning by asking the question, ‘How do you derive technology based on the learning goals of your students?’ It turned out they were able to engage their students both in class and outside.” We’re not likely (we hope) to see robots as teachers any time soon, but as teaching assistants, we may ⇒nd them to be indispensable. e Cooler than Computers Work is in progress to bring teacher-friendly robotics into the classroom. Tom Lauwers, a doctoral candidate in computer sci- Does your school have an effective benchmarking and progress monitoring system in place? Bringing effective assessment practices to your classrooms will guide your differentiated instruction choices to more effectively teach all students and gauge their academic progress. AIMSweb® uses 1 to 3 minute curriculum-based measurement (CBM) probes for grades K through 8 to benchmark and monitor essential skill areas: Early Literacy Reading – Fluency – Comprehension Spelling Early Numeracy Math Computation Written Expression Sign up for a FREE webinar on AIMSweb today! Go to www.AIMSweb.com The Power to Learn. s !)-3WEBCOM http://edutopia.org/poll-robots-classroom http://www.AIMSweb.com http://www.AIMSweb.com http://www.AIMSweb.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Edutopia - August/September 2008

Edutopia Contents Up Front Feedback Dispatches Sage Advice Ask Ellen Head of Class Cool Schools Design: Building on Disaster What's Next Full-Service Schools In the Trenches Moral Aptitude Serious Gaming Behaveyourself.com Media Is the Message The Way of the Wiki A Match Made in Cyberspace Hail to the New Chief Rise of the Robots Disrupting Class As Others See Us Heart & Soul Pop Quiz: Moby

Edutopia - August/September 2008

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