Co-Learning Computational and Design Thinking Using Educational Robotics: A Case of Primary School Learners in Namibia
Annastasia Shipepe, Lannie Uwu-Khaeb, Carmen De Villiers, Ilkka Jormanainen, Erkki Sutinen
Abstract
In a two-day educational robotics workshop in a Namibian primary boarding school, learners with no programming skills managed to apply both computational and design thinking skills with the aid of educational robotics. Educational robotics has proved to be an area which enhances learning both computational thinking and design thinking. An educational robotics (ER) workshop focusing on Arduino robotics technologies was conducted with primary school learners at Nakayale Private Academy. Observation methods through watching, listening and video recordings were used to observe and analyze how the learners were interacting throughout the workshop. Based on the results, it was concluded that this approach could be applied in classrooms to enable the primary school learners apply computational and design thinking in preparation of becoming the producers and not only the consumers of the 4IR technologies.