Robotics Programming for middle school students in Lalitpur
December 2019 | Lalitpur
On December 3, 3019, the second “Mentor training Program to Foster Logical and Creative Thinking Using ICT for Basic Education” was jointly organised by KDDI Foundation, OLE Nepal, Miyagi University of Education, Lalitpur Metropolitan City and CityNet Yokohama Project Office. Teachers from seven Raspberry Pi program schools from Lalitpur participated in the training program. The main objective of the training was to prepare mentors to guide the school students in making basic robots with ArtecRobo sets along with fostering their logical and creative thinking. The goal of the program was to help mentors provide basic knowledge of programming to the school children. Using block-based robots and basic programming, students can develop learn-by-play methods of learning.
At least two teachers from each school participated in the training program. Out of the seven schools, Jalpa Secondary School, Yashodhara Secondary School and Hindu Vidyapith Secondary School have been students using ArtecRobo kits for programming since March 2019, after the first training. The new schools participating in the training were Harisiddhi Secondary School, Shramik Bal Vigyan Lower Secondary School, Prabhat Secondary School, and Bal Vinod Secondary School. Teachers from the schools that have been using these tools for over six months shared their experiences and said that practice of robot programming had helped boost students’ interest in science and technology, while engaging them in team work.
OLE Nepal partnered with three institutions from Japan — KDDI Foundation (Tokyo), CityNet (Yokohama) and Miyagi University of Education — to launch robot programming education in seven public schools in Lalitpur, in collaboration with the Lalitpur Metropolitan City (LMC). This program promotes OLE Nepal’s goal to provide quality learning opportunities through the effective use of technology in classrooms. Schools are provided with 2-3 ArtecRobo kits that students can use to design and build robots, which can be programmed to carry out various tasks using simple child-friendly visual programming tool known as Scratch. This robot programming exercise allows students to use their creativity and critical thinking skills to solve problems while working collaboratively in a team.
Following the training program, the participants visited Hindu Vidyapith School in Balkumari where the students have been using the ArtecRobo Kits and Scratch. Participants observed as students worked in groups to assemble and program their individual robots.