ENXENO: LEGO Robots from University Lab to K-12 Classroom

摘要

At different levels, we can state that education has experienced deep changes in the last two decades powered by the demands of different agents and factors. These changes have been materialized in the development of new learning and teaching methods that try to improve teacher-students interactions, or the way of presenting the large available amounts of existing information in a comprehensive, structured and efficient form. Regardless of the selected approaches, these targets entail the development of innovative material aligned with new teaching methodologies, which will be a short-term demand in the new study plans. A well-known case is that of the European universities that must incorporate the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) requirements [1-3], which focus more on issues, such as infrastructures rather than creating laws that regulate methodologies. Furthermore, the general lack of methodology definitions and regulations also affects other levels of education as K-12. An important gap can appear between both levels of education (K-12 and university) due to the divergence of the background educational plans. At this point, the university appears as the main agent to transmit contents in addition to active learning based experiences, in the form of extra-curricular activities, which deploy edutainment to other education levels. Instructors from all educational levels should experiment with the many options offered in the quest of a winning teaching/learning formula. From this quest, the need for new methods that will allow a reasonable access to the material and software resources should not be excluded. Equal access to educational material is central to providing a homogeneous background to students from all socio-economic strata, various minorities and educational environments. Limited access to resources can seem unfair from the social point of view.