Designing bio-inspired robotics workshops given language limitations

Carrillo-Zapata, Daniel; Lee, Chanelle; Digumarti, Krishna Manaswi; Hauert, Sabine; Boushel, Corra

Authors

Daniel Carrillo-Zapata

Chanelle Lee

Krishna Manaswi Digumarti

Sabine Hauert

Corra Boushel

Abstract

Educational robots are increasingly being used in schools
as learning tools to support the development of skills such as computational thinking because of the growing number of technology-related jobs. Using robots as a tool inside the classroom has been proved to increase motivation, participation and inclination towards STEM subjects
at both primary and secondary levels; however, language has usually not been considered as a mitigating factor. This paper reports our experience delivering nine workshops in English, using Thymio robots, to over two hundred students aged 9-12 across a week in the French cities of Nancy and Metz. Our goal was to test whether students would still
have fun, learn something new and gain an interest in STEM even when the workshop was conducted in a foreign language. Our results indicate that using language that is easy to understand, although foreign, has a strong direct correlation (p~10-3) with having fun and that the latter
positively affects learning and increased interest in STEM.

Citation

Carrillo-Zapata, D., Lee, C., Digumarti, K. M., Hauert, S., & Boushel, C. (2019, April). Designing bio-inspired robotics workshops given language limitations. Paper presented at RiE 2019 : 10th International Conference on Robotics in Education, Vienna, Austria

Presentation Conference Type	Conference Paper (unpublished)
Conference Name	RiE 2019 : 10th International Conference on Robotics in Education
Conference Location	Vienna, Austria
Start Date	Apr 10, 2019
End Date	Apr 12, 2019
Acceptance Date	Feb 1, 2019
Deposit Date	Mar 13, 2019
Peer Reviewed	Not Peer Reviewed
Keywords	educational robots, bio-inspired robots, biomimicry, foreign language workshop, Thymio
Public URL	https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/852584
Additional Information	Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : RiE 2019 : 10th International Conference on Robotics in Education