A Robot in Kindergaten

These thought are the result of work in progress, started in 1999, within the scope of the Trás-os-Montes Digital/SCETAD, project (sub-project: ICEI – Computers in Early Childhood Education Contexts). The work took place in Portuguese kindergarten rooms, with children aged 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Bringing the robot into a kindergarten rooms is extremely easy. The empathy between it and the children occurs immediately. We feel this is due to its nice looks, together with its ease of use and the simplicity of its programming. Another good thing is that it is easily customized – it can be disguised as whatever the children wish it to be; this allows its integration within the several projects that arise in a kindergarten room.

Children see the Roamer robot as a toy that can be ordered around (just like a remote control car), it is the child that decides and sets its destination. It is our role, as educators, to promote these abilities, conferring them an educational intent (as with the examples of activities, further ahead). It should be noted that children, upon realizing that the wrong option was taken, don’t usually like to make such an error be noticed. The robot lets them make errors without leaving traces. Its patience in unmatched by any grown-up, and this turns it into a friend that is always there, with whom the process of learning through trial and error is essential for knowledge build-up. For instance, the robot can be ordered to follow a path, only for later on to be realized that it was the wrong one, that it wasn’t the fastest one, or that it reaches a dead end; on such a situation, one can backtrack and repeat the process, and thus improving the child’s response abilities. With the robot, the children can, in a playful way, turn abstract concepts into reality. Example include: measuring; comparing lengths; moving in a specific space, and drawing a path diagram; expressing these concepts in words.

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Robots in the classroom

Instead of simply reading the story to the class and later leading students in a discussion about its meaning, Doyle said, the teacher had the students program the robots to act as characters in the book, using the technology to reconstruct the story for their classmates.





Where the exercise served to teach students about the basic elements of the story, he said, it also encouraged them to work together in teams, using their critical thinking and problem-solving skills to decipher simple mathematics equations, program the robots on the computer, and choreograph the movements of each machine to reflect the storyline.

"The planning that was involved in being able to do that was just incredible," Doyle said of the project.

Now, as efforts such as NCLB force schools to get tough on teaching STEM disciplines, Doyle says, teachers are becoming increasingly interested in the power of robotics--not so much as a lesson in high technology, but as a fundamental tool for helping students master the basics.

Throughout southwestern New York, he said, tech-savvy educators reportedly are using the Roamer robots to help emphasize certain geometric concepts, teach students how to plot points on a navigational map, and lead lessons in beginning programming and engineering.

Unlike most textbooks, where problems are written out on paper and to exact results, robotic tools such as the Roamer illustrate the unpredictability of math in the real world, Doyle says. For instance, students using the Roamer must account for a series of real-world variables such as the impact of the floor's surface--carpet or tile--on movement, and other circumstances beyond their control.

"When you're driving down the road, you're not necessarily driving in a straight line," explained Doyle. "There are all sorts of variables to contend with." The Roamer helps students learn to account for these, he said.

At the Mathematics & Science Center in Richmond, Va., K-5 math and physical science teacher Gail Warren says educators use Valiant's Roamer to teach third-graders about such fundamental concepts as angles, degrees, and basic geometry. Instead of simply drawing shapes on a board or manipulating them on a computer screen, she said, teachers work with students to program the movements into the robots and then watch as the machines carry out each action as assigned.

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Life is About Choices and the Decisions We Make

Life is like a road. There are long and short roads; smooth and rocky roads; crooked and straight paths. In our life many roads would come our way as we journey through life. There are roads that lead to a life of single blessedness, marriage, and religious vocation. There are also roads that lead to fame and fortune on one hand, or isolation and poverty on the other. There are roads to happiness as there are roads to sadness, roads towards victory and jubilation, and roads leading to defeat and disappointment.

Just like any road, there are corners, detours, and crossroads in life. Perhaps the most perplexing road that you would encounter is a crossroad. With four roads to choose from and with limited knowledge on where they would go, which road will you take? What is the guarantee that we would choose the right one along the way? Would you take any road, or just stay where you are: in front of a crossroad?