INTRODUCTION

 Educational robotics manages to combine learning with play, and thus education easily turns into an entertaining activity and it is commonly known that learning is easier, faster and more effective when combined with play. Cross-curricular activities were designed according to ΔΕΠΠΣ – ΑΠΣ (Cross Thematic Curriculum Framework for Compulsory Education) for kindergarten and in all five academic fields with the BEE BOT, a floor robot that is specially designed to be used by preschoolers as well as by elementary school students.

This case study that took place in a state kindergarten in Patras explored:

1. The use of the educational robot for the learning of history, krifó scholió - feggaraki
2. The learning of musical notes and the tutelage of the robot in the traditional song Feggaraki

School Bacground

The activities described in this part took place in an urban, public Kindergarten school in Patra, Greece.In the project participated 18 pupils 12 boys and 6 girls and a teacher. Neither the students nor the teacher had been previously exposed to the BEEBOT 

Educational Approaches

The activities that were carried out were integrated into the Interdisciplinary Framework of Educational Programs of the Kindergarten. The experiential, collaborative and interdisciplinary pedagogical method was used. Each participant group was small and the BEEBOT was used as a learning support tool in a research-based experimental way and in contact with educational robotics

Teaching Experiment

As a methodology, it develops the need to study the learning process itself rather than just its results. For pedagogues, the teaching experiment is research in the classroom and, by extension, research of the learning process to improve learning in the classroom itself

 Experimental Programming Activities

 Before the robot was presented, a conversation was held to discover children's previous opinions/knowledge.What is a robot and what it is not: Students were asked to answer what they think that a robot is and why. In the next activity, the students had to choose among a series of given images depicting a robot and to justify their answer. (Language)

The following activities included programming concepts such as sequence and repetition. In particular, the children were asked to instruct a classmate to arrive in the morning at school. In practice, they found out that when they had not given the right instructions, they guided their classmate to reach school sometimes without shoes, or in their pajamas, thus they had to “reprogram” them (ICT, Algorithmic and Mathematical Thinking). The students were taught the basic concepts of the programming language in a playful way, their interest and curiosity were stimulated and established correlations between programming and everyday life

Meeting ΒΕΕΒΟΤ

The aim of BeeBot is to stimulate pupils' interest and to familiarize them with its operation in order to be introduced to robotics through play.The robot was presented to the students, their views on its operation mode were discussed, and the students played a pantomime game during which they had to imitate the robot's movements (the pre-k students had difficulties in distinguishing left and right unlike the kindergartners that encountered no problem).Afterwards the students became acquainted and experimented with the BEEBOT symbols/keys in order to learn how to give the correct commands, properly program the robot and understand its steady pace (15-centimeter range of motion). They then freely experimented on a ready-made BEEBOT track mat. Twisting the BEEBOT constituted the biggest challenge as they had to understand that "turn right or left" means that it literally turns right or left and does not move forward or sideways (learning from experimentation and mistakes). They prior had plotted the route on paper to record their thoughts and then in practice to see if they understood the route they planned.

STEM activities with the traditional song feggaraki

The traditional song was an opportunity to explain children the Greek Folklore Tradition as the children's song has some common ground with the popular legend about the “krifo scholio”. The students sang the song and put their own interpretation on the words of the song but most of them gave the same interpretation with the popular legend. They also played pantomime game and mimicked the children going to “krifo scholio” .The teacher proposed them to try to involve BEEBOT in this game. They suggested creating their own floor for Mellou using the history of the song. The BEEBOT walked provided that they would have given it the right commands (understanding the correct sequence of commands). (Language, Environment, Creation-Expression, Mathematics, ICT)

CREATION OF FLOOR/TRACK INSPIRED BY THE KRIFO SCHOLIO STORY

Having been helped by the teacher, the pupils designed the first square of the track. Next, they created alone the entire track that was easy for them, in which they glued images that had chosen online. 

PLAYING MUSIC WITH BOOMWHACKERS

The Boomwhackers are colorful plastic sound tubes that help children to learn the pentagram easily.In these activities the musical tubes were used to introduce students into the musical instruments, to learn the notes, to improve their memory, to learn coding (using notes) and of course to understand algorithms. (Creation - Expression, Language, Mathematics) Due to the colors the students learned easily not only the musical notes but also the notes of the song so they sang Feggaraki using the notes. Then they played the song with Boomwhackers. Each student held their tube and tried to play their note in the correct order (sequence).

CREATION OF CODED TRACK AND ROUTES WITH BEEBOT FOLLOWING THE NOTES OF THE SONG

The pupils created a coded floor with the notes in the colors of the sound tubes of “Feggaraki” song While the students were singing, they had to show the corresponding notes on the coded floor.They designed the route that BEEBOT would follow according to the notes of the song on paper and then programmed the robot (Mellou) to move on the floor following the notes (Music, Educational Robotics). The students developed their imagination, creativity, critical thinking and learned how to direct the robot into the notes of the song (ICT, Algorithmic thought, Mathematics, Music).