TOYS IN THE CLASSROOM: USING EDUCATIONAL ROBOTS AS A TOOL TO SUPPORT EDUCATION
TOYS IN THE CLASSROOM: USING EDUCATIONAL ROBOTS AS A TOOL TO SUPPORT EDUCATION

Summary/Abstract: The economic development, the increase of computerized calculation power, research in the field of bionic and biophysics have allowed the unrecorded development of robotics. Ten years ago, most of the robots operated in the field of industry, representing expensive investments with complex functions and capacities of finest execution and speed. They usually were used in welding, manipulation and set up, in various operations regarding the construction of machines. The economic and competition’s demands have determined their large scale exploitation. Education as an essential activity in the evolution of a society could not have been neglected by the technological phenomena, having knowledge of essential transformations which are found in new methods, models and paradigms of modern education. The use of robots for supporting primary education up to graduation at university has become, in the recent years, an interesting field for researchers in the education science all over the world. This paper aims to explore the possibility of using robots as an efficient training- educational tool for teaching technical subjects and not only these. It analyses the available solutions at the present moment which refer to the robots used in education. Characteristics, costs, strengths and weaknesses of some available solutions was compared and evaluated to introduce a guideline for an efficient method to support learning using educational robot. The advantage of “robotic revolution” is found in the potential of interaction with the system and creation of changes within its parametres. Development of educational robots is still in its early stages. To complete our understanding of educational robots, we should explore potential benefits of using robots for education, optimal design of them and any limits and challenges that must be addressed.

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