Storytellers and engineers in early childhood: developing technological fluency by making robots Marina U. Bers Dept. of Child Development Computer Science Dept. DevTech Research Group Tufts University Marina.bers@tufts.edu

What is robotics? Mechanics and Electronics Building and Programming Designing and Implementing Engineering and Storytelling Cultural identity and SMET

Little storytellers Little engineers

Engineering and Storytelling 5 5

Why robotics in early childhood? New generation of building blocks Appropriate for today’s context Child-centered curriculum Engage both little engineers & little storytellers

Robotics curricular web science cause and effect life cycle physical world earth and space literacy reading writing literature extensions story telling ROBOTICS technology/engineering design process simple machines mechanics programming social studies mapping geography history family arts music dramatic arts dance/movement visual arts collage/sculpture math graphing measurement block building number sense geometry patterns

Let me give you sa concrete example of what I mean with this. Powerful Idea Description Computer Programming This is the fundamental idea that robots are not living things that act of their own accord. Instead, robots act out computer programs written by human beings. Not only that, children can create their own computer programs to control a robot. Command Sequences & Control Flow The idea that simple commands can be combined into sequences of actions to be acted out by a robot in order. Loops The idea that sequences of instructions can be modified to repeat indefinitely or in a controlled way. Sensors The idea that a robot can sense its surrounding environment through a variety of modalities, and that a robot can be programmed to respond to changes in its environment. Parameters The idea that some instructions can be qualified with additional information. Branches The idea that you can ask a question in a program, and, depending on the answer, have a robot do one thing or another. Subroutines The idea that you can treat a set of instructions as a single unit that can be called from other parts of a program. At mit, sicne it is a technical school, we have put a lot of effort in developing technologies to help young people become scientists and mathematicians. For example,the BBB project engages children in building their own scientific instruments to understand how real scientists work. But in my other life, before coming to MIT, I was a social scientist and humanist, so I became very interested in how to extend…..to personal development. Let me give you sa concrete example of what I mean with this.

Positive Technological Development (PTD) interventions Assets Behaviors Technological Tools Contribution Confidence Character Competence Connection Caring Communication Outcomes Collaboration Self Improvement Before After Community- Building Contribution to society Content Creation Creativity Choices of Conduct Personal development trajectory within a socio cultural context

Project InterActions: families with young children & culture Families create a robotic project that represents their cultural identity chose a culture to explore, decide the materials to use, manage the resources and time-frame, resolve the technological challenges (both programming and mechanics), create narratives around the final project Make a website documenting the experience At mit, sicne it is a technical school, we have put a lot of effort in developing technologies to help young people become scientists and mathematicians. For example,the BBB project engages children in building their own scientific instruments to understand how real scientists work. But in my other life, before coming to MIT, I was a social scientist and humanist, so I became very interested in how to extend…..to personal development. Let me give you sa concrete example of what I mean with this.

Tangible Kindergarten At mit, sicne it is a technical school, we have put a lot of effort in developing technologies to help young people become scientists and mathematicians. For example,the BBB project engages children in building their own scientific instruments to understand how real scientists work. But in my other life, before coming to MIT, I was a social scientist and humanist, so I became very interested in how to extend…..to personal development. Let me give you sa concrete example of what I mean with this.

Want more ? Marina.Bers@tufts.edu http://www.tufts.edu/~mbers01/ “Blocks to Robots: Learning with Technology in the Early Childhood Classroom”. Marina Umaschi Bers Teacher’s College Press, 2008