Abstract:

Robotics is currently an increasingly progressive science field and it is one of the reasons that it will permeate more into education and not only into Computer Science. Simultaneously it can also be assumed that working with educational robotics and robotic programmable toys will increasingly begin to be a part of educatinal process at primary or lower secondary education levels. The development of computational thinking plays here the main role as well.
It is also essential to connect scientific fields, mainly natural sciences, together and think not just separately about subjects and fields in the case of primary and lower secondary education. One theory that fits the aforementioned requirements is STEM. However, the FERTILE project goes even further and is dedicated to connecting robotics with the Arts.
As part of this project, a specific methodology is being developed that should help teachers better understand both the development of computational thinking and robotic activities in Art and Culture subjects. The methodology was first tested at primary schools and the results obtained from these schools in the Czech Republic are presented in this article.
Primary and lower secondary school teachers were introduced to the methodology and were asked to create specific robotic activities, which they then tried out in lessons they taught. After that, the teachers had the task of reflecting on both the methodology and the course of the invented activity itself. The identified positive and negative aspects of both the methodology and the activities themselves are part of this study. It turns out that the connection between robotics and art is real, and even in art-based subjects there are possibilities for developing computational thinking. However, the teachers also point out some minor problems that need to be taken care of.

Keywords:

Robotics, computational thinking, art, methodology.