INITIATION TO PROGRAMMING WITH ARDUINO BY MEANS OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNING

Technology development is such that requires today’s society to have abilities and competences with which we will be able to adapt to changes that are going to occur. In order to favor this adaptation to the so-called information society, school plays an important role. Incorporation of Information and communications Technology (ICT) into the classrooms and education centers is a priority and it has become the key to the students’ motivation.

To achieve this ICT integration, teachers must be well trained and confident when using them. This training can not only focus on software knowledge, but it should emphasize on changes of mentality and attitude. This change of mentality is necessary for avoiding undesirable situations. For example, sometimes, some computer tools have been introduced to students, being firstly motivational for them but not for a long time due to a monotonous use. This monotony has resulted in converting these computer tools as motivational for students as any other traditional tool.

The work presented is focused on developing basic competences in science and technology in a 4th E.S.O. classroom. To get this, it was proposed a project which integrates new technologies in a dynamic and motivating way, choosing Arduino as a programming tool due to its simplicity and ease to assemble programming codes.

One of the methodologies with better results in competences acquisition which is presented in the classroom is the one based on collaborative learning. From this methodology, students take several roles and the teacher is only a guide, who accompanies all groups during their learning process, so we consider it as the more appropriate to develop the projects.

About 80% of the national projects increase the budget and its duration due to a poor planning, so, special interest was focused on students’ teamwork capacity, deadline achievement and on the performance of realistic plans by the students.

The final solution that was expected to achieve was chosen by the students, with the aim of increase their creativity and decision-making capacity, complying with defined criteria and following the proposed proceeding to perform this activity.