Learning Robotics, with Robotics, by Robotics

Foreword

There has been a growing interest in the use of educational robots in schools. In the 1960s, after Seymour Paper introduced the LOGO programming language and the floor turtle, robotics became an issue in the educational environment. Robots are slowly being incorporated into our society and currently, the number of service and/or assistance robots has outnumbered industrial robots. So robots are slowly beginning a process of seamless integration into our everyday lives both at home and at school where their applicability is at the core of an increasing number of studies [ALI 13, MUB 13]. However, this does not include “robots for kids”: the impact of educational robotics is even more crucial for children and teenagers, where robots can be used for their cognitive development and intellectual growth. As a consequence, greater attention must be paid to how educational robots can be better integrated into the lives and into the education of young people.

Traditionally, the majority of studies investigating “educational robotics” has attracted the interest of teachers and researchers as a valuable tool to develop cognitive and social skills for students from pre-school to high school and to support learning in different domains such as science, mathematics, technology, informatics and other school subjects or interdisciplinary learning activities. Even though a review of the scientific literature reveals that educational robotics is a growing field with the potential to ...