The need to help communities to understand the importance of screen time, robotics and computer science in school.

https://elearningindustry.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/ed0b0c31c412f7d67bd39119503bb394.jpg

Technology continues to grow and change with every minute of every day.  Students in today’s world are craving to have these new advancements, apps, techniques, etc implemented into their learning on a daily basis.  It is the world they are growing up in.  Educators are fully aware of this.  Teachers committed to and energized by the many different ways to bring technology into the classrooms try to stay on top of all the latest and greatest ways to inspire students to grow into creative, problem solving adults.  However, more and more, local communities fail to understand the importance of maintaining the investment of funds into various devices and peripheral units.  The backlash of too much screen-time comes when a state releases school assessment scores that are below average.  Educators and school administrators have a responsibility to help local townspeople who react negatively to the wonderful, educational value of offerings like STEM, Robotics and general computer science curriculum come to understand the investment in curriculum like these will pay the best interest.

http://www.emergingedtech.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/27-ways-to-edtech.png

“One of the trickier challenges is getting parents and, more broadly, communities on board with the idea that computer science is for everyone” (DeRuy).  The lack of understanding that computer science, and all that it entails, is for all students, not just those that society has deemed smart or bright because the can score well on a standardized test or a basic class test.  The value of computer science being taught in schools kindergarten through senior year needs to be understood at all levels of a community, from parents, to town council member, to teachers, to retired citizens, etc.  The 21st Century citizens we are grooming need to be ready for the what the future brings in terms of careers.  “Our schools were designed to produce the workforce required by 19th century factories.  The desired product was workers who would sit silently at their benches …. Collaboration and critical thinking were just what the just what the factory owners wished to discourage” (Monbiot).  Citizens in many local communities still feel this way and do not see the need to move to incorporating the wide variety of computer science into schools and that reading, writing and arithmetic is what is essential.  As Yong Zhao stated, “Reading and writing should be the floor, not the ceiling” (Couros).  Providing the reasons and examples are essential to gain
the support.

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/infographicposterrobotics-131113043810-phpapp01/95/robotics-and-education-infographic-leapfrog-initiatives-1-638.jpg?cb=1384317774

Understanding the many facets of robotics, for example, is a key to gaining this support.  Robotics offers so many educational benefits for all students.  The problem solving, teamwork, communication and collaboration involved in robotic lessons and competitions is monumental.  In using and teaching robotics, students come to understand that failure is a part of life.  And with failure comes the opportunity to learn and grow.  The opportunities robotics offer help prepare all students, from all background, for real life experiences.  “The needed determination and perseverance become important markers on the path to college and career readiness” (Ciochina). Robotics education incorporates all the old school pieces: reading, writing and arithmetic.  Journaling, for example, is a used extensively in robotics.  Students have to write down their methods and procedures used in their programing: where they succeeded, where they failed, adjustments they made as well the emotions they experienced along the way. Reading is also essential to robotics.  The ability to read and understand the process and requirements for specific assignments and competitions and the feedback that comes from them is crucial.  The programing algorithms and mathematics involved in the commands designed, tested, adjusted, retested help students to continue on through struggles in order to reach success is real-world experience.  A textbook cannot match this experience.  

Another argument that brings resistance to the seeing the need for computer science in schools and the devices it requires is the complaint that too much screen time is ruining students learning in general.  Actually, there are many situations where more screen time is very beneficial to a group of students that appears to becoming larger and larger. Many students with special needs are findinding growth and help in overcoming the barriers certain disabilities put forth.  For example, a feature that is being used more and more for students that have the processing issue of struggling with getting their ideas and thoughts down on paper have been using speech to text; this is no different from the accommodation of allowing students to take a test orally. This is the need of screen time at the most basic level.  At the more advanced level, with the right program or app, students with attention issues and deeper processing levels can use tablets to reprogram their brain activity to help them develop strategies to help them move beyond their disability.  “....studies suggest that all that screen time does is rewire the brain. But that may not be a bad thing….kids can benefit from learning how to focus on a single goal-based task and block out any other distractions” (Scott).

Criticism of today’s education also comes in the form of saying students leave school unable to work with other people and have the inability to take feedback that is constructive. Computer science in schools, and all that it involves, disproves this. Robotics provides students who have behavioral issues to develop the social skills needed in life because  Students have to collaborate.  They have to share ideas, respect the suggestions of others, compromise for solutions and work together to adjust the programming and be open to the feedback that comes from judges and coaches to improve their performance.  Robotics is all about teamwork.  Students have to learn to be unselfish; a real challenge in our 21st century world. “...students are given the opportunity to improve their ability to reason, engage, in argumentation with peers, and learn to leverage others’ ideas” (ESchoolNews).

Our schools and world has come a long way since public schools were set up in the 19th century and the rows of desks that were going to prepare students to keep our factories going. Any educator who is passionate about wanting to see students grow more confident in their learning and skills, as well as want to inspire students to love learning, understands that the implementation of computer science education, and all it encompasses, is vital to today’s schools.  Gaining community support to help fund these programs is the challenge.  All too often, taxpayers in towns become too focused on the impact education programs and budgets will have on a mil rate rather than see the importance of how much a STEM curriculum on the future of that town, as well as our country, will be.  Teacher and administrators in today’s school systems need to get into the business of marketing and selling their craft and successes.  Having robotics teams, for example, present to a school board and/or a town council and demonstrate how their programing works and show all learning they have done could possibly turn one or two of those naysayers to the side of the value of computer science education.  School systems need to sell their product and how, although education has changed, they continue produce prepared, problem solving, thought provoking human beings who know how to work well with others and are open to suggestions and input as to how to make this world a better place.

References

Can robotics teach problem solving to students? (2017, January 20). Retrieved from https://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/01/20/robotics-teach-problem-solving/?all

Couros, G. (2015). The innovator's mindset: Empower learning, unleash talent, and lead a culture of creativity. Dave Burgess Consulting.

DeRuy, E. (2016, October 19). A Plan to Teach Every Child Computer Science. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/10/a-plan-to-teach-every-child-computer-science/504587/

The Human Side of Robotics Education. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.advanc-ed.org/source/human-side-robotics-education

Leon Sterling Professor emeritus, Swinburne University of Technology. (2017, November 22). Five reasons to teach robotics in schools. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/five-reasons-to-teach-robotics-in-schools-49357

MARTINEZ, SYLVIA LIBOW. STAGER, GARY S. (2016). INVENT TO LEARN: Making, tinkering, and engineering in the classroom. CONSTRUCTING MODERN KNOWL.

Monbiot, G. (2017, February 15). In the age of robots, our schools are teaching children to be redundant | George Monbiot. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/15/robots-schools-teaching-children-redundant-testing-learn-future

Prestridge, S. (2017, 01). Examining the shaping of teachers’ pedagogical orientation for the use of technology. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 26(4), 367-381. doi:10.1080/1475939x.2016.1258369

Prigmore, M., Taylor, R., & Luca, D. D. (2016, 07). A case study of autonomy and motivation in a student-led game development project. Computer Science Education, 26(2-3), 129-147. doi:10.1080/08993408.2016.1210854

Schaffhauser08/22/17, D. (n.d.). Teaching Robots to Learn Teaches the Students Too. Retrieved from https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/08/22/teaching-robots-to-learn-teaches-the-students-too.aspx