DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES AND EDUCATIONAL ROBOTICS IN PHYSICS’ EDUCATION

Specific Foundation

General Foundation

The course is also offered to exchange programme students.

At the end of this one-semester course, it is aimed that the students: - Are able to describe, in specific ways and with clarity, the contribution and the role of tools from ICT’s and digital technologies, in Physics’ education. - Have acquired measurable and assessable skills of using digital technologies and of using computers in Physics’ instruction, as perspective educators. - Be able to build - both as future educators, but also for their own students - communities of learning, based on digital technologies, as regards Physics. - Be capable of using basic arrangements of Educational Robotics, for the instruction of topics of Physics. - Make an adequate and in-depth didactic use of the Internet for Physics. As regards the stances and the emotional/social aims, according to Bloom, it is aimed that: - Any kind of “technophobia” of perspective educators is raised, and - with digital technologies and Educational Robotics as tools - they face Physics in a more friendly way. - They acquire the possibility to comprehend phenomena and topics of Physics and to explain them to their own students, by deploying digital technologies and/or Educational Robotics, instead of using complex descriptions or descriptions containing mathematical formalism.

The course has a teaching, but also a laboratory nature. The students are practicing in applied teaching design, in parallel with the lectures and the laboratory practice. The practice includes: (i) usage of digital technologies, (ii) usage of and exercise in contemporary laboratory arrangements and (iii) the interaction practice with arrangements of Educational Robotics. At the same time, the students curry out an individual or group assignment / work. Teaching Fields - Digital Technologies and their educational deployment. - Technologies and theories of learning. - The evolution and the classifications of the pieces of educational software, with a focus on Physics as the field of application. - The importance of digital technologies for the teaching and learning of Physics. - The changes in school practice, brought about by digital technologies. The role of the Physics’ teacher, in relation to the educational usage of technologies. The teacher as a creator of educational material. - The principles of design and development of educational software. - The evaluation of educational environments which are supported by digital technologies. - Contemporary environments of learning, based on technology, for Physics’ teaching. - Educational utilisation of general purpose software. Educational software constituting by multimedia and hypermedia. - Webquests as a teaching practice. - Web2.0 applications (blogs, wikis, social networking tools...) as teaching tools for Physics. - Communities of learning and practice, distance education systems, digital repositories of educational material for Physics. - Visualisations, simulations and modeling with computer, from the field of Physics. - Virtual Physics Labs. - Changes in laboratory practice. Laboratories supported by Digital Technologies and micro-computers (e.g. MBL). - The use of Multi-Agent-Based Systems (such as NetLogo) in simulation and modeling for educational purposes in Physics. - "Microworlds" as an educational tool in Physics. - Educational Robotics’ devices, with an emphasis on the Arduino platform and physical computing, as well as the Micro:bit platform, used for teaching purposes in Physics. - Programming environments with tiles (Scratch), as teaching tools in Physics and as teaching tools combined with Robotics (Scratch for Arduino) in Physics. - Possible rudimentary introduction to other Educational Robotics platforms, with a didactic use in Primary School Physics, such as: Lego, Raspberry pi, etc. Course Structure: The course is generally structured in thirteen consecutive meetings, lasting three hours each, alternating between: lectures, laboratory practice in Digital Technologies and laboratory practice in Educational Robotics. The last meeting is the presentation of the projects by the students. The structure and content of the thirteen (13) meetings is described as follows: - 1st Lecture: Generally, about the role of digital technologies, as teaching and learning tools in a broad sense, and in Physics, in particular. - 2nd Lecture: Simulation, visualisation and modeling environments from the area of Digital Technologies, in the teaching and learning of Physics. Electronic repositories for Physics. - 3rd Lecture: Special topics of Physics (sound, light, photovoltaics, etc.) seen through the prism of Digital Technologies (Part A). - 4th Lecture: Special topics of Physics (heat, electrical circuits, elementary electronics, etc.) seen through the prism of Digital Technologies (Part B). - 1st Digital Technologies Workshop: Simulation, modeling and programming environments in Physics Education. Electronic repositories. - 5th Lecture: Learning communities using technologies, in Physics. Team-collaborative and synchronous or asynchronous teaching with technological tools. Use of the Internet for Physics learning purposes. - 2nd Digital Technologies Workshop: The distributed documents (Google docs) of various formats (Worksheets, presentations, texts) as a means of teaching Natural Sciences for the Primary teacher. Technology-based learning communities for Physics. - 3rd Digital Technologies Workshop: Use and application of Microworlds and Multi-Agent-Based systems in the teaching and learning of Physics. - Laboratory with high-tech experimental devices: Systems for collecting, recording and storing data and creating graphs in real-time. (E.g. The SPARK Platform). Microcomputer-Based-Laboratory (MBL). Sensors – Actuators. Oscilloscope – Photogate (simple applications). - 4th Digital Technologies Workshop: Creating a Physics’ course in e-class environments (emphasis on the Open e-class). The new h5p (www.h5p.org) course builder for Physics. - 6th Lecture: Educational Robotics as a teaching and learning tool in Physics. The case of the Arduino platform and Physical Computing. The Micro:bit platform. [If time permits it: An introduction to the Educational Robotics’ platforms Lego and Raspberry Pi.] - 1st Educational Robotics Workshop: Use and application of the Arduino platform, in order to practice Physical Computing, in specific examples from the field of Physics. (Indicatively: electrical circuits, Optics, Renewable Energy Sources, etc.) Using Scratch as an Arduino programming tool. Use and application of the Micro:bit platform, in specific examples from the field of Physics. - Last meeting: Projects’ presentations by the student groups.

Digital Technologies, Educational Robotics, Education, Physics

29-08-2024