Programming and robotics is gaining on importance also in Slovenian educational system. The interesting title and programme about programming and robotics, lead me to attend the Etwinning pedagogical conference (PDW) in Brag, Portugal, which was held in May 2016. It was here that the robot Meet Edison was first introduced to me. The robot Meet Edison was developed in Australia as a result of a successful Kickstarter campaign raising more than 100.000 $. Reading the materials before attending the workshop in Portugal and the experiences I got there, lead me to the conclusion that the robot Meet Edison is a good and affordable option of introducing programming and robotics already in the early education process. I wanted to confirm this idea(s) in the classroom so I conducted lessons with the pupils from grade 4 and 5, who attend Computer lessons as an extra-curricular programme and were already familiar with the programme Scratch, as well as with the pupils from grade 7 and 8, who have not been in contact with programming and at the end of the school year also with the pupils from grade 5, who have not had experiences with programming either. As I wanted to gain and exchange experiences, I connected with my colleague from another school, who also conducted these lessons on his school. The pupils in the lessons made tasks, which have further on served as learning material for their classmates. This is the reason why I have chosen to present my paper in this theme section. With this type of lessons, I wanted to check the correct approach and the successfulness of using a robot as a tool for developing and teaching programming. The lessons have convinced me to use the robot as a tool in my educational process in the next school year and to share my experiences with the public. At the beginning of the lesson, the robot’s capabilities were presented, which were later also further examined, the pupils prepared various tasks showing different functionalities that the robot offers, upgraded with extra capabilities, which were explored by the pupils themselves and lastly the problems or tasks were resolved. This way of learning enabled pupils to learn from each other as well as developing functional literacy, as they had to form tasks and write explanations for them in a way every pupil could understand them. Finally, I want to say that the Meet Edison robot can also be used as a motivational tool in other school subjects thus enabling interdisciplinary lessons and further developing computer skills.
Marjan Cerinšek, Osnovna šola Šentjernej, Šentjernej
Roman Drstvenšek, Osnovna šola Blanca, Blanca
