RECOMENDACIONES PARA FUTURAS INVESTIGACIONES

‘Mr Mike’ Doyle

Teacher, British School of Sofia, Bulgaria, [email protected]

Abstract

Keywords

References

The British School of Sofia [1] some five years ago adopted a primary level curriculum devised by Iliieva and developed by Doyle [2]. Based on creative ‘modelling your world’ projects using LEGO systems for construction and Interface B and Control Lab Logo for computing, This approach to ‘robotics’ has greater core curriculum compatibility and is more modernisable than recent offerings like Scratch or WeDo, as participants will discover. Papert’s [3] belief that conscious constructions are more powerful than verbalizations points to a unique human adaptation for technology [4]. This is exercised in education in mastery of the symbol systems of literacy and numeracy; less formally expressed in children’s drawings. There is no science without technology. The computer is a powerfully assistive educational replacement for the frozen flatland of the book [5].

Participants’ will take the role of first to fifth graders, sampling projects, concepts and techniques, links to the core curriculum and its technological foundation; meeting Ellie electron and Freddy photon. Video illustrates projects constructed and coded: e.g. polarity-sensitive lights, traffic lights, windmills, lighthouse, and police- action. Coding progresses from button-pressing through commands to procedures with loops and parallel processing; and raises issues of mathematics, language, science, and fitness for purpose.

1. Ъританско училище в София, http://britishschoolbg.com/en/home/

2. Doyle, M., Ilieva, V. Primary Robotics: Laying Sound Foundations. In Reynolds, N., Webb, M., IFIP 10th World

Book of Abstracts

SMART Robobraille: Producing accessible learning materials by means

of Open Source Tools

Klaus Hoeckner

Hilfsgemeinschaft der Blinden und Sehschwachen Österreichs, Austria, [email protected]

Keywords

References

The main objective of the project was to explore and describe how to prepare and create educational material inalternate formats in a smarter and easier way using RoboBraille1_{and other relevant free document conversion}

and authoring tools. Based on that, to develop a complete training course, ready to be implemented across Europe. The objectives were (i) too support the inclusion of the visual and reading impaired in mainstream education; (ii) to improve the quality of the education of the reading and visually impaired in mainstream environments; and (iii) to improve the way in which teachers, parents and alternate media producers use information technology to meet these objectives.

Through hands-on workshops, the project partners have educated a target group of mainstream teachers special-education teachers, university faculty and vocational trainers in using ICT2_{to improve the}

quality of the production of various educational material in alternate formats and as such provide a more inclusive educationalenvironment with equal opportunities for students with special needs.

A further objective was to disseminate the results of the project to relevant parties by being able to offer the SMART Training Course developed as part of the project; and by presenting papers at relevant conferences, thus disseminating methods, practices, tools and didactics developed as part of the project at conferences attended by special-needs teachers, educators, parents, primary users and vision impairment professionals.

1. Christensen, L.B (2006) RoboBraille – by Means of an E-Mail RobotAutomated Braille Translation. Available from: http://www.robobraille.org/sites/default/files/resourcefiles/RoboBraille%20ICCHP%202006%20-

%20Published.pdf.

The Use of Assistive Technologies as Learning

Accessiblity · Open Source · Training Course · Inclusion · Assistive Technology

Abstract

Construction and Computing in Primary School: Photons, Electrons,

LEGO, Logo, and Issues around the Core Curriculum

‘Mr Mike’ Doyle

Teacher, British School of Sofia, Bulgaria, [email protected]

Abstract

Keywords

References

The British School of Sofia [1] some five years ago adopted a primary level curriculum devised by Iliieva and developed by Doyle [2]. Based on creative ‘modelling your world’ projects using LEGO systems for construction and Interface B and Control Lab Logo for computing, This approach to ‘robotics’ has greater core curriculum compatibility and is more modernisable than recent offerings like Scratch or WeDo, as participants will discover. Papert’s [3] belief that conscious constructions are more powerful than verbalizations points to a unique human adaptation for technology [4]. This is exercised in education in mastery of the symbol systems of literacy and numeracy; less formally expressed in children’s drawings. There is no science without technology. The computer is a powerfully assistive educational replacement for the frozen flatland of the book [5].

Participants’ will take the role of first to fifth graders, sampling projects, concepts and techniques, links to the core curriculum and its technological foundation; meeting Ellie electron and Freddy photon. Video illustrates projects constructed and coded: e.g. polarity-sensitive lights, traffic lights, windmills, lighthouse, and police- action. Coding progresses from button-pressing through commands to procedures with loops and parallel processing; and raises issues of mathematics, language, science, and fitness for purpose.

1. Ъританско училище в София, http://britishschoolbg.com/en/home/

2. Doyle, M., Ilieva, V. Primary Robotics: Laying Sound Foundations. In Reynolds, N., Webb, M., IFIP 10th World Conference on Computers in Education, Turun, Poland. Volume 2 pp. 28-35 (2013)

3. Papert, S. Situating Constructionism. Online at: www.papert.org/articles/SituatingConstructionism.html [09.01.2017] 4. Ó Dúill, M., Countering and Composing the Minds’ Lies: Technicity, Science and Art. In Futschek, G., Kynigos, C.,

Book of Abstracts