Abstract:

Over time, educational robotics is moving from the professional sphere to the educational and even to the primary and pre-primary level of education. And with that comes new challenges. Among the basic ones, we rank determining the appropriateness of the tool and the adequacy of the curriculum for teaching the basics of algorithmic thinking. It is a complex issue, and the right answer is not simple. In this paper, we want to deal specifically with two simple robotic kits and their programming environments: Make mTiny Coding Kit and Matatalab programmable robot. Both are intended for children from four years of age and are focused on education. That is, for students of pre-primary and primary education. In the paper, we briefly present the research that we follow up with this work, both robotic kits and the environments in which they are programmed. We briefly describe qualitative data collection tools - i.e. activities that we created in order to be able to compare the given robotic toys in quality. When analysing the data, we focused on the possibilities by which these robotic toys can be controlled, i.e. programming and on their graphical user interface (GUI) control elements. In the results, we will present the possibilities that these robotic toys offer in terms of interactivity, programming concepts, technical security, potential in the school environment, and we will evaluate their advantages and disadvantages that they represent for teaching in the teaching process of informatics.

Keywords:

Educational robotics, robotic kits, primary education, programming, qualitative data, GUI.