Mechatronics and programming with Arduino

Very much work was done during the spring term in Rauma. Many of our students' Arduino projects were completed, and some of them were really fantastic. Some of the projects will be continued in the next term, partly becouse of the rebuilding arrangements in our campus in the late of the spring. In the future we are going to improve our course more towards embedded systems so that more diverse projects and new materials could be included. For example e-textiles would be one of the next alternatives. Here I'd like to introduce you one of our current projects: it is a mobile controlled small crawler, or "Arduino tank". The video has also been done by our students.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PzNAAP5VMM

Programming as a challenge at schools

Yle Uutiset Suora linja is a Finnish TV magazine in which the reporters are talking about actual topics. The discussion is open for all audience via internet, and comments can be sent beforehand in the Yle Uutiset www-platform. In November 2013 Yle Uutiset Suora linja opened the discussion about the idea that programming should be taught in the Finnish comprehensive school. An argument was presented that for example in the Great Britain the Prime Minister Michael Cove has been standing up to get programming in the British National Core Curriculum. http://yle.fi/uutiset/pitaisiko_ohjelmointia_opettaa_myos_suomen_peruskouluissa/6950743

Comments to Yle Uutiset were sent both on behalf of and against of the argument. Many commentators suggested programming as an optional subject. Bad and negative experiences about the own school years were reported. More all-round ICT education was suggested. I see that the challenge is to find a reasonable contest for programming as a content of education. The teachers’ knowledge about content and reasonable pedagogical competencies, as well as hardware and stuff for building and practice are requirements for success.

In our university Derpartment of Teacher Education, Rauma Unit we have continued to study programming related to our students’ Arduino microcontroller projects. We started our projects in October last year in the guidance of the visitig teacher Jussi Romppanen. On the 11th to 13th February this year we had the next active intensive period leaded by Mr Romppanen. The time between has been controlled mostly via the course wiki, but also some of the supervision and guiding has been hold in our campus.  The world of programming has been like learning to speak a new language. In the early stages students have been unsure about their abilities, and the familiarization to the programming has been challenging. The very basics are easy to understand, but the appliance and combining the control of different sensors and actuators for functional and sophisticated code has been the challenge. Our students have designed very fine projects, but much work has to be done before the happy end. Now it is also the time to consider, how do our students could use and exploit their experiences later in their work in the comprehensive school context. The functional pedagogical models for working with young children has to be found out.

The alarm clock project

Teacher In-Service Course KäpOp2.0

Learning is something you should have motivation and enthusiasm. In technology education, the teacher should find out strategies to combine theoretical contents and practical activities in the student’s projects. For example, concepts concerning electricity or electronics are abstract and difficult to understand for the students.

Last week in KäpOp2.0 teacher in-service course the temporary students (or teachers in their real life) were studying the contents related to electricity and electronics. They were engaged in theoretical lessons, but also worked with electricity experimental material, which was conducted by a narrative background material. The idea about two secret agents seeking an extremely precious diamond “The Crown of Serengeti” and in the same time solving problems related to electricity and physics phenomena was the narrative in the background of the experiment material. These teachers experienced, that the material would be very motivational for primary school pupils.

Fortunately in our digitizing society we also have lots of possibilities to exploit free learning materials through the internet. As one example, our student teachers familiarized themselves with some learning games. One example of them was a puzzle for connecting bulbs and wires to the batteries in order to make a working circuit:

http://www11.edu.fi/astel/pelit/sahko/lamppupeli/index.html

Our "teacher students" doing experiments