Moreover, according to Freinet (2002), school subjects should not forgo the collaborative approach, which should be part of an internal system of sharing and interacting; each learner should be an active participant in the network. This is an early theorization of active citizenship.

Retracing the three authors' steps and rediscovering their mind sets in the light of the Maker Movement were crucial and preparatory to the study of the DENSA experience. The cooperative is profoundly connected to the Maker Movement, as is evident in its mission of inclusion, and its aim of providing learning opportunities to all. It applies the maker mind set to enhance skills and capabilities. We had an opportunity to study DENSA (and its activities) for four months (November 2018 to February 2019), analyzing the links between making skills and the learning process. In doing so, we looked at two workshop activities that aimed to introduce the maker culture to an extracurricular project: *Making Culture—Our Heritage in 3D* (which involved a 3D printing system) and *Coding Unplugged* (involving educational robotics).

The aim of *Our Heritage in 3D* was to reflect on artistic and cultural heritage (tangible and intangible) and on territorial identity (past and present). The project appeared to be a good opportunity for participants to practice all four of the competences we considered. First, it is noteworthy that the workshop was linked to a collective reflection on the recent earthquake in the region (2016). In fact, the event caused serious damage to Perugia's Carducci-Purgotti secondary school, which later had to be demolished. The idea behind *Our Heritage in 3D* was to invite students to think about the aftermath of the disaster, by creating 3D prototypes. In addition, the project had a specific intercultural theme (inspired by the multicultural class). Students analyzed the experience of *Superkilen* in Copenhagen as an example of social integration through urban design. These important topics allowed us to consider that all four of the competences co-existed harmoniously within the project. First, using Sugar CAD and other tools, participants were able to put their digital skills into practice, through 3D prototyping designs to reconstruct their local area, and also the competences of mathematics, science, technology and engineering. At the same time, the social and cultural themes of the project facilitated artistic expression and cooperative learning. Moreover, *Our Heritage in 3D* was related to INDIRE's *Maker@Scuola* project (2014), mainly because DENSA's activities were built on the same tools and software: In3dire, Sugar CAD, Raspberry Pi, OctoPrint, Cura. We also looked at 3D printing as an "emotional technology" (Guasti et al. 2017, p. 129), which allowed us to examine the project in all its complexity. According to this definition, 3D printing takes time, reflection and critical thinking. From here, we structured this complex project into four phases to allow students to master and develop the competences. First, students had an opportunity to get an idea about the subject and then analyze it in more depth. Next, they did some research on the theme and on icons, which was followed by a design phase using Sugar CAD. The final phase involved the TMI (Think, Make, Improve) approach.

### **5 Conclusions**

To sum up, the aim of our reflection on the Maker Movement was to underline how the maker mind set can foster learning, not only in individual disciplinary subjects, but also of cross-disciplinary competencies. It is interesting to note that each approach that we considered (Freinet, Munari, Malaguzzi) focuses on the fundamental importance of techniques, which can be door-openers for learners. In crossdisciplinary terms, it is essential to acquire the know-how to handle all forms of learning: "Rhetoric in the Maker Movement often focuses on skills rather than abilities" (Martin 2015). As Célestin Freinet used to say, the only educational system that can help learners to cultivate their culture and prepare them for life, is one that is based on techniques (Freinet 2002).

### **References**

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

# **Chesscards: Making a Paper Chess Game with Primary School Students, a Cooperative Approach**

**Agnese Addone and Luigi De Bernardis**

**Abstract** The game of chess can be too theoretical for children and can even be quite a challenge for teachers and chess masters. It is hard to make it approachable and, at the same time, technically correct. The *Chesscards* educational project arose from these observations, and is intended to be a way to translate chess theory actively, by tinkering with paper and colors. This delightful experience was conducted from 2015 to 2019 with 10-year-olds in a primary school in Rome, Italy, and enabled children to develop good chess skills by cooperating in making. Small groups of children aged 7–10 created playing cards and a paper chessboard along the lines of some of the most famous games. The initiative's huge success, and the reason it was repeated in these last years, lies in its strictly constructionist approach to making: *Chesscards* became an original way to learn, and an easy social game that any child can play.

**Keywords** Chess · Making · Constructionism · Constructivism · Cooperative learning · Primary school · Tinkering · Pattern recognition · Social learning

# **1 Introduction**

The idea behind this project is to get primary school students to play chess playfully and cooperatively.

They are introduced to the difficulties of the game, along with the rules and strategies. From the first experience in 2015 until 2019, the number of classes involved increased, and the project officially became one of our school's main educational focuses. A book [1] and a paper [2] have been published on the workshop.

A. Addone (B)

L. De Bernardis Luiss Guido Carli University, Rome, Italy

© The Author(s) 2021

141

Department of Computer Science, University of Salerno, Fisciano, Italy e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
D. Scaradozzi et al. (eds.), *Makers at School, Educational Robotics and Innovative Learning Environments*, Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems 240, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77040-2\_19

Both girls and boys achieved a good level of proficiency in chess, which was seen in their total autonomy in playing and in their participation in contests and tournaments at school and externally.

*Chesscards* is a making workshop where children design, color, cut and use their own cards, similar to the more famous Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! games.

During school hours, the project always involves a class teacher and a chess master, one class at a time. This is an important setup, which maintains the link between theory and practice in the game of chess.

The children work in small groups to boost collaboration, cooperation [3] and participation. They enter a process of peer learning [4], which is central to the activity: the group's observation is essential to the success of the learning process [5].

The children achieve numerous skills in this experience: individual responsibility to the other members of the group, interdependence and a sense of having a common goal; review of each other's work; logical and algorithmic reasoning, social networking and team building; controlling negative or aggressive emotions.

The project was developed over four years and is still in progress. The number of children involved by year is as follows: 61 (2015/16), 251 (2016/17), 193 (2017/18) 200 (2018/19), 220 (2019/2020). We briefly describe a concrete example of application of the *Chesscards* methodology in a course organized in classes (10-year-olds) in a primary school in Rome, Italy. Our sample consisted of children aged 7–10 years; the ratio of males to females was more or less equal.

#### **2 Making** *Chesscards*

The first stage in the workshop is an introduction to the history of the game of chess and its development through the centuries in different countries. This is an essential step which focuses the children's attention on the game and explains its extraordinary position at the meeting point of games, sports, science and art.

During this phase, the chess master also introduces all the pieces, their different roles and values, and the basic strategies that are important to know to start playing. There is also great emphasis on the objective: conquering the center of the board. The teachers put the children into small groups and assigned a paper template to each child. The template is a sheet with several blank fields, an image of the piece, the name of the piece, a brief description of its value in points (3 for the bishop or knight, 5 for the rook and 9 for the queen) and how it moves, arrows indicating the direction in which it moves. At this stage the template is quite large (A4 format), to make it easier for the children to draw. Students are free to represent the piece in the central frame of the template as realistically as they want or using a metaphor or a symbol.

This is a very important stage, because it allows each child to express him or herself individually, and it is a kind of passport for obtaining the group's respect (Figs. 1 and 2).

**Fig. 1** *Chesscards* template: name of the piece, caption/description, stars indicating its value, arrows indicating the direction of travel. The children can unleash their creativity within the rules of the game

**Fig. 2** The three stages of making *Chesscards*: designing, cooperating, testing. First drawing, then the final version of the cards, when the game can begin on the chessboard

After a group discussion of the results and a peer review, the second step is to color the drawings. Much attention is given to how the stars and arrows are colored in, which has to be consistent with the rules of the game.

In the last step, the *Chesscards* are reduced and mounted onto white or black backgrounds, then cropped and laminated to protect them during play. It is essential for the background of the cards to be black or white: each player has a full set in one of the two colors.

Separately, children prepare a large paper chessboard, with squares the same size as the cards, and then place the pieces onto it.

**Fig. 3** Two different versions of *Chesscards*: children use metaphors for their pieces. The stars indicating its value and arrows indicating the direction of travel of each piece are colored

Pairs of players are now formed and the match can start. Every child knows the rules and, if in doubt, can refer to the rules on the Chesscards so they can be sure they are moving correctly on the board.

To measure learning effectiveness at the end of the course, we ask children in the first few lessons to draw their own map, on a blank form. This also acts as our observation sheet, enabling us to identify weaknesses in their concepts about chess and which ones can be strengthened. The results are compared with those collected at the end of the course and are shown in the chart below. It is clear that the concepts that are missing are the different stages in the match (and the different strategies to be used in them), the center of the board and how the pieces progress. On the other hand, there is a very frequent misconception that the aim is to take as many of the opponent's pawns as possible. The concept of stalemate is not mentioned on any map (Figs. 3 and 4).

The children learned to play using their *Chesscards* on the board and were helped by the information written on the cards and the board. This information does not appear on a traditional board, but makes the process of learning the game easier for the children.

#### **3 Outputs**

Creativity is actively encouraged in this project. The children use their imagination and choose how to portray the subject, and can represent their pieces through symbol or metaphor. The most interesting results include characters in a castle, people in the street, country flags, fantasy characters and symbols. Each child has his or her own set of *Chesscards* and a board. Many exchange pieces or create a new set to exchange.

**Fig. 4** Survey of learning effectiveness based on the problems raised in cognitive maps; each bar represents a node on the map, and is a key concept in the game

The constructionist approach [6] employed in the *Chesscards* project shows that learning by doing is vital. The maker approach may seem minimal here, but the children's active involvement and the results in educational terms are effective. By making their own cards, children become actors in their learning process and boost their motivation, engagement, accountability, and participation.

The social context plays an enormous role in the process [4]: the small group size is fundamental for achieving the best environment for constructing the game [3].

Playing with *Chesscards* is not so different from playing with real pieces, but the game is much more approachable for all children and teaches them the fundamentals of chess [7] in a fun and playful way.

#### **References**

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

# **A New Graphic User Interface Design for 3D Modeling Software for Children**

**Laura Giraldi, Mirko Burberi, Francesca Morelli, Marta Maini, and Lorenzo Guasti**

**Abstract** Digital technologies have become a central part of the everyday experience the younger generation children and young people, born and raised in the ITC era, are known as digital natives. At school, this generation prefers active learning instead of being passive recipients of knowledge. This research proposes a new graphic user interface concept for a 3D modeling software program, designed for preschool and early primary school children. The interface of SugarCad Kids was improved to be more understandable, friendly, intuitive and enjoyable to use, in keeping with the principles of human-centered design.

**Keywords** Children · Preschool design · 3D software · UX/UI · GUI

# **1 Context**

# *1.1 Digital Natives and ITC*

From the early 1990s, new definitions began to appear defining the generation after Generation X (born between 1961 and 1981 in the era of the video game console and

M. Burberi e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
F. Morelli e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
M. Maini e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
L. Guasti

© The Author(s) 2021 D. Scaradozzi et al. (eds.), *Makers at School, Educational Robotics and Innovative Learning Environments*, Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems 240, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77040-2\_20

L. Giraldi (B) · M. Burberi · F. Morelli · M. Maini University of Florence, Florence, Italy e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
Istituto Nazionale di Documentazione, Innovazione e Ricerca Educativa (Indire), Florence, Italy e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
the personal computer). This new generation of people was dubbed millennials [1], the net generation, Generation Y, digital natives, and digital immigrants [2, 3].

These two generation of people have in common a world full of technology (ITC) and real-time information, which are also both useful factors for the school system, where learning should be more active than passive. According to cyberpsychology, new technologies (especially digital technologies) affect cognitive processing in digital natives, particularly their intuition, and the way they organize and implement their actions [4].

#### *1.2 School Education and Learning for Digital Natives*

According to Papert, knowledge construction is much more significant if it takes place in a context where the learner is engaged in producing something concrete and shareable. Errors are not negative, they are simply part of the learning process.

Making a mistake means exploring, learning from one's mistakes and looking for alternative solutions to the problem. The teacher's role is to guide children towards understanding their mistakes (debugging).

This form of mental construction and *concrete thinking* [5] can be summarized in this way: not learning to make, but making to learn [6].

Constructionism assigns a particularly important role to real constructions, as they support constructions in the mind. According to these theories, school should become a place where construction takes place, rather than being only a place for learning passively. Furthermore, it should feature dedicated learning environments with technology, where children are the main users (student-centered) and practical activities are the source of learning.

In February 2018, the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research published new national guidelines highlighting the importance of improving scientific, mathematic and computational learning in three- to seven-year-olds. This is necessary to help them developing rational, logical, and critical thinking skills with which to solve problems.

The National Digital School Plan (Piano Nazionale Scuola Digitale—PNSD) calls for the production of creative ateliers in primary schools (Law no. 107, 13 July 2015 known as the "Good School" law). These are physical workshop spaces where maker learning can take place.

#### *1.3 A New Teaching Methodology: Maker Pedagogy*

The Maker Movement is a new frontier in artisanship; called 2.0, it combines the spirit of traditional crafts with new technologies.

In pedagogical terms, this culture has its roots in the principles of pedagogical activism and new schools, and also the Montessori and Munari methods.

Maker Movement pedagogy has combined the spirit of crafts with experimental play; it connects digital objects to material ones, through specific solutions that generate design models that can be produced using different fabrication technologies, including 3D printing.

In *maker pedagogy*, children are at the center of learning and their interests guide doing and learning activities through play, fabrication, designing and exploring (learning by making). According to Piaget [7], until the age of six, children learn mainly by working. This is why it is fundamental for them to work with all five of their senses in the first years of life.

An international study [8] shows that children three- to four-year-old have the skills to distinguish between geometrical forms, and they can understand their more basic properties like sides and corners. Children's interest in geometry could be enhanced and their knowledge expanded through targeted programs and early experiences [9]. These exercises are easy to achieve using 3D printing, offering children the opportunity to see their product being made, and increasing their metacognitive competence.

#### **2 The Aim of the Research**

This research *refers to Maker@Scuola*: "*Nuove Tecnologie per la Didattica*" [10], a project running since 2014 and developed by INDIRE (a government agency for research in educational innovation). The aim of the research project is to experiment new forms of laboratory teaching that are enhanced by new technologies (such as the 3D printer and the hydroponic greenhouse) at all school levels beginning with preschool and primary school.

*In3Dire*—a system that gives schools the ability to design and print 3D artifacts, even without an Internet connection—and a 3D modeling software called *SugarCad*, which is integrated into the in3Dire System, are part of the Maker@Scuola project. SugarCad was developed with the technological setting in mind, to resolve issues found in school environments. It was also designed to be used by students (and teachers) at different school levels and offers multiple interfaces for different user levels of experience.

The aim of this research paper is to define a concept for a GUI (graphical user interface) for a new level in SugarCad called *SugarCad Kids*, dedicated to children, three- to seven-year-old. This new level will join the two already available (basic and advanced). The aim of SugarCad Kids is to adapt the SugarCad GUI so that it is as intelligible, intuitive and enjoyable as possible to use, thereby improving its educational purpose.

Another goal of this research is to propagate a new way of teaching young users based on *learning by doing* and *learning by making*. This method can bolster the natural development of their skills and attitudes, starting from pre-primary level.

# **3 Research Method**

### *3.1 Child-Centered Design*

A good *user experience* from a product, a system or a service comes when the design is functional, and is easy to understand and use.

The research considers the user-centered-design (UCD) approach as the main method for child-centered design (CCD) [11]. The work also concerns humancentered design (HCD), a problem-solving process that focuses on understanding children's needs and behaviors in relation to the context they live in and their psychological traits and features. The HCD approach considers the needs and behaviours of people during the *design thinking* process and later when testing and validating the results [12, 13].

Furthermore, the CCD that goes into a product, a service or a GUI communicates clearly and interacts not only with children but also with teachers and parents. In fact, GUIs that have been designed taking into consideration the user experience (UX), not only meet the satisfaction of children and their friends, but are also more effective for learning. To summarize, a GUI should be playful, easy to use and suit the user's age [14].

A digital interaction for children should:

#### *3.2 Analysis*

**Users: children aged 3–7**. It is a common mistake to think of children as a single category, and not relate their cognitive and mobility skills to their specific ages [16–21].

A four-year-old child's reading and mobility skills need different design solutions. Therefore, sub-categories of user/child should be taken into consideration.

Some researchers and professionals in the field of new digital technologies use a *3–6–9–12* age grouping model [22], which contains three age groups: 3–6, 6–9 and 9–12 years. Others suggest a *2–4–6–8–12* format with four different groups. This one is more appropriate, because it reduces the range within each group from three to two years, [23] and defines the user more accurately. As the target for SugarCad is children in preschool and the first year of primary school, users have been analyzed according to the 2–4–6–8–12 model, mainly considering those aged three to seven.

*2–4 years.* This is an important age range because during this period children become autonomous (from babies to small children).

The GUI should have the following features:

*4–6 years.* A GUI for this age group should be more than a modified version of the one for two- to four-year-olds based on their different skill levels. Their interaction with the interface should be stimulating and should take into consideration what they already know and their collective imagination. As they approach the age of six, students are able to solve relatively complex problems and make mental classifications quite efficiently. They are also quite loud and have become technologically adept.

#### **4 The Project: "SugarCad Kids"**

#### *4.1 Wireframe and Logo*

The practical activities on the SugarCad software were focused on the design concept for the new GUI. Since it had features that were closer to those needed for the target group, the existing platform's basic level interface was used as a starting point for analyzing how to improve usability, interaction and UX in general.

This analysis identified the actions users would perform when working from this new level (SugarCad Kids). This led to a new task analysis, a new task flow and, subsequently, the layout of the prototype for the new GUI.

The wireframe design also tooks account of factors like content (text, images, icons, etc.), functionality (commands, buttons, sliders, feedback from commands, etc.) and navigation (the way the content and the various functions are located and used). The project proposes four wireframes for the *welcome page*, the *switch page*, the *freehand drawing page* and the *3D geometric shapes page*. The idea of giving SugarCad Kids its own identity led to the creation of a dedicated logo, which kept a sense of continuity with the other levels of the software. At the same time, it had its own recognizable identity more suited to younger users and their collective imagination.

#### *4.2 Graphic User Interface for Children (3–7-Year-Old)*

Neutral colors were used for the background to create greater contrast and the features become more readable. It also helps the visual separation of different interactive elements.

The action icons were enlarged, using homogeneous colors, depending on their position on the screen. Where possible, these positions were kept the same on both main pages (*freehand drawing* and *3D geometric shapes*), to ensure continuity, avoid visual confusion and help users find their way around the GUI. In some cases it was seen that icons were difficult to interpret, even for children who can read, so a text reference was added in the web version of an easy-to-read, dyslexia-friendly font. The icons of the 3D geometric shapes were given anthropomorphic characterization, making them as close as possible to comic or cartoon characters that children are familiar with, and more playful. It may be possible to add a simple animation that can be activated when a finger hovers over or touches the character.

Message boxes have simpler, clearer, child-friendly graphics to ensure instant feedback and further improve UX.

#### **5 Conclusion**

This paper has considered children's abilities in relation to the maker learning approach. Unlike traditional learning, this method gives a child more scope to express his/her creativity actively. The distinctive aspect of this project is the attention given to the graphic design, with the purpose of making the interface more appealing and intuitive for children. It also underlines the significance of adapting the interface to suit different users (children).

The study of children's characteristics made it possible to define project rules that could be applied to the graphic user interface for younger users, to make it as child-friendly as possible. This method could be used to design other CDC GUIs for digital products, and not only in learning environments.

The following points summarize the proposed elements that can be used to design this kind of "kid-sized" interface.

actions should be immediate to avoid confusion and distraction; they should be accompanied by animation and video, where possible.

3. *Cognitive aspects*. The cognitive skills of young users change rapidly.

The GUI's visual language should take account of children's imaginations; they need fun, playful elements to enable them to approach maker learning. This helps children's experiences become a new way of learning that is more active and less passive, and leads to better results. We hope designers can use this approach to GUI design for future CCD digital products for teaching and learning in line with *maker pedagogy*. Our aim for the next year is to finalize implementation of the interface and begin the first experiment with students at school. This will enable us to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the interface and improve it.

### **References**

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

# **Museum Education Between Digital Technologies and Unplugged Processes. Two Case Studies**

**Alessandra Carlini**

**Abstract** This document presents the results of architectural design and prototyping of educational kits within the museum context, two case studies featuring a combination of digital technologies and unplugged processes. The field of application is cultural heritage and the topics are part of school curricula. The first case study is a museum display of digital video installations and educational kits that reproduce mechanisms of symmetry from patterned flooring ("www.formulas.it" laboratory, Department of Architecture, Roma Tre University and Liceo Scientifico Cavour" high school). The second case concerns the setting up of a school fab lab in which 3D-printed prototype educational kits are made for schools and museums in Rome, in partnership with the Municipality of Rome and the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (General Directorate for Education and Research). The cases involve professional, research and didactic experiences which led to funding-supported projects. The experiences showcase good practices in informal and cooperative learning, and highlight the relationship between education and popularization that draws on our architectural heritage.

**Keywords** Museum education · Architectural design · Educational kit · 3D printing · Digital manufacturing · Fab lab

### **1 Introduction**

Digital technologies are transforming traditional learning methods. What are the implications of this for the museum's role in lifelong learning and in today's knowledge-based society? In some of the experiences we describe, unplugged activities and digital technologies are used to increase motivation and spark interest and curiosity in learning . Although targeting people of different ages and backgrounds,

A. Carlini (B)

© The Author(s) 2021

DARCH, Department of Architecture, Roma Tre University, Largo Giovanni Battista Marzi, 10, 00154 Rome, RM, Italy

e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS><EMAIL_ADDRESS>
D. Scaradozzi et al. (eds.), *Makers at School, Educational Robotics and Innovative Learning Environments*, Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems 240, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77040-2\_21

the projects are particularly effective in informal learning contexts in public schools. The field of application is cultural heritage. The teaching of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics) subjects is at the heart of the creative process, calling attention to soft skills and a more conscious digital citizenship, as required by the National Plan for Digital Education (PNSD) [1]. All prototype kits were used in a hands-on, peer-to-peer workshop. Finally, the experiences feature best practice examples of "authentic tasks" [2]. In a context of "laboratory teaching" [3] and "competency-based learning" [4], they pose an open-ended question by simulating real contexts.

#### **2 Museum Display for Science Popularization**

This section presents the experience of designing for science popularization in a museum context. The goal is the study of symmetry trough the visual stimuli provided by historic artifacts (geometric pattern paving). In the first case, the communicative potential of digital tools is exploited when an exhibit is created that centers around the relationship between the museum space and the visitor. Digital tools provide an experiential stimulus for mathematical content. In the second case, the museum is an "authentic" setting for developing scientific teaching skills, and for designing educational kits on the subject of symmetry, for use in activities taking place at the museum.

#### *2.1 Video Floor Installation Showing Symmetries in Motion*

The first design opportunity took place at the Genoa Science Festival, 2007. The "www.formulas.it" laboratory (Department of Architecture, Roma Tre University) presented the exhibition entitled "Mathematics and Archeology" (scientific supervisor Laura Tedeschini Lalli, Roma Tre University). The original appearance of the floor is reconstructed with virtual animations starting from the archaeological fragments found on site (Trajan's Markets, Rome, imperial period), by applying the mathematical theory of periodic tessellation [5]. In the exhibit a video installation is projected onto the floor, rather than a screen, because the object is mathematical and related to architecture (Fig. 1).

The floors appear from above and visitors can walk on them. Perception and conceptual content are linked through physical experience.

This method seeks constant interaction between the Italian experience on science popularization linked to the school of Enrico Giusti ("Garden of Archimedes", first mathematics museum, currently in Florence, Italy), and 20th-century museography.

**Fig. 1** The video projected onto the floor and, at the top, a "Velarium" help recreate the original spatial dimension of the Roman *tabernae* and convey the correct proportions to the floor. The projected animations were created by Elisa Conversano

Herbert Bayer's experiments (1900–1985) at the Bauhaus Institute in Dessau (1919–1933) used the relationship between the mechanics of the eye and the physical dimension of perception as design tools [6] (Fig. 2).

After the Second World War, Italian architects like Carlo Scarpa (1906–1978) and Franco Albini (1905–1977) created museum installations in which they reflected on the relationship between content and container, by making a connection between the object and the physical dimension of perception. Both the experiences cited viewed

**Fig. 2** Herbert Bayer, Werkbund Exhibition, Paris, 1930. The diagram shows the visual perception possibilities available to exhibition designers

museography as a system of relationships. The relationship between architecture and the popularization of science was discussed in Carlini and Tedeschini Lalli [7] and Carlini et al. [8].

#### *2.2 Extended Museum of Cosmati Floors. Educational Kit*

The experience described in the previous paragraph inspired the 2016 project "Educational kit for an extended museum [9] of Cosmati floors", a PCTO (training course in transversal skills and orientation) for the "Liceo Scientifico Cavour" high school and the National Museum of Palazzo Venezia (Rome, Italy; Director Sonia Martone). Carried out with architect Teresita d'Agostino, the project is mentioned as one of the Ministry of Education's best practices [10] and was selected by CNR (National Research Council of Italy) for the conference "Officina 2018" [11] (Fig. 3).

In this case, the study of symmetries concerns the geometric pattern of Cosmati floors in Rome and Tuscania. The symmetry educational kit was made using digital and unplugged techniques: mirror rooms [12], inventory of magnetized pieces, smart tourism with immersive Google Cardboard, interactive map for smartphone [13]. Since 2017, the Ministry of Education and Research (MIUR) has included the project in the "Visiting Teacher" workshop activities for peer-to-peer teacher training

**Fig. 3** Educational kit for the study of symmetries in Cosmati floors

in secondary schools (project managers at "Liceo Scientifico C. Cavour" school: Alessandra Carlini and Teresita d'Agostino).

# **3 Museum Education. Prototyping Educational Kits with 3D Printing in the School Fab Lab**

The educational potential of a school fab lab is illustrated below. The structure was built at "Liceo Scientifico Cavour"school in Rome (headteachers: Ester Rizzi 2017; Antonella Corea 2019; Claudia Sabatano 2020) together with Antonina Amadei, the school's digital coordinator. The goal was the creation of a learning environment open to local institutions, a prototyping center for educational kits with a 3D printer, applying the living lab approach. This strategy uses digital fabrication to stimulate scientific inquiry and inclusion, by strengthening the role of science as an economic lever in the knowledge society. Museum education also means using the museum as a learning environment, not merely for the passive enjoyment of cultural heritage.

The activities of a school fab lab provide an experiential approach to knowledge that uses the body as a cognitive tool through the tactile exploration of objects made with a 3D printer, and direct engagement with historical and cultural heritage. The experiment fits into the cultural context of the "Tactile Laboratories" developed by Bruno Munari (1907–1998) after his "*Le mani guardano*" exhibition (Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy, 1979) [14].

Students aged 16 to 18 in the third or fourth year of *Liceo Scientifico* engage with younger students, aged nine upwards, at hands-on workshops conducted with prototype models printed in the school fab lab. The goals are: inclusion through museum education; cultural heritage education through an experiential approach; informal education and cooperative learning; dissemination of science culture through visual and experiential input; development of digital manufacturing skills; new technologies applied to cultural heritage in the knowledge society. Skills were evaluated using: *Ex ante* evaluation (analysis of starting levels, *ex ante* observation section of MIUR protocol for PON-FSE 2014–2020 projects); formative evaluation (presentation of intermediate steps and review of partial results, intermediate observation section); and e*x post* evaluation (presentation of the results to a commission made up of teachers and external tutors, interviews, dissemination workshops, *ex post* observation section of MIUR protocol). The kit can be used in different contexts: educational workshops in museums; hands-on peer-to-peer workshops with younger students; curricular activities in the classroom.

## *3.1 Creative Geometry Kits: Detachable 3D-Printed Apollonius's Cone*

The school fab lab was used to prototype a 3D-printed creative geometry kit for use in schools in the Municipality of Rome (2017) [15]. Students chose Apollonius's cone for project development [16]. This object allows the visualization of conic sections circle, ellipse, parabola, hyperbola. The project uses magnetic surfaces to enable disassembly and reassembly. The cone, of which no other examples of "hourglass" or double-branch models are known, was prototyped using CAD software (Tinkercad, GeoGebra) and 3D printing (Cura) in the school fab lab (Fig. 4).

The project won the international prize at the 2018 edition of Maker Faire, Rome. Here, too, the didactic results were achieved through years of work, starting from the experience of the Ministry of Education's PLS (Scientific Degree Program) entitled "*Coniche e macchine da disegno*" (Conics and drawing machines) [17].

The activity takes place in four steps:

1st step—analysis of market attractiveness and identification of the topic through brainstorming;

2nd step—designing the prototype, including identifying parts, deciding on printing procedures and choosing materials and colors. Storyboard for the video tutorial on conic sections;

3rd step—development of the 3D model in Tinkercad and GeoGebra software; thematic insights, word and image processing for the video tutorial;

4th step—3D-printed (Cura software) prototype of the kit, surface finishing and gluing magnetized surfaces.

**Fig. 4** Detachable apollonius's cone made with a 3D printer

**Fig. 5** Tactile kit of Romanesque architecture in the National Roman Museum (Rome, Italy)

Inclusivity is one of the goals achieved with this project, with the teaching kit being used during curricular activities of recovery training gaps.

#### *3.2 ART-TOUCH-LAB. Tactile Kits Made with a 3D Printer*

The educational kit illustrated in Fig. 5 is a tactile device to improve museum access and inclusion. It was prototyped in the school fab lab and commissioned in 2019 by the Directorate-General for Education and Research of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (MiBACT). Autodesk software (Zephyr, Recap Photo, Meshmixer) and hardware (smartphone and 3D printer) were used to make a photogrammetric survey of Romanesque architecture and decorations [18].

The printed kit allows tactile exploration for the blind and the sighted. More generally, it is of interest to everyone as it stimulates cognition and is a different approach to art. The 1921 "Manifesto on tactilism" by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) is a fundamental premise for any cognitive experience of art that uses sensory channels other than sight. The "Omero" tactile museum (Italy) is an important venue for social inclusion through art. The project was carried out with architect Teresita d'Agostino and won the PON-FSE "Alternanza scuola-lavoro" competition and was implemented with European structural funds (Partners: Centro S. Alessio per ciechi, Myosotis, Scuola Innovativa start-up; A-Sapiens. Evaluation: Daniela Liuzzi). In the context of STEAM, cultural heritage and museum inclusion is meant to encourage active citizenship: a more conscious digital citizenship, with inclusion as an instrument of democracy and popularization of scientific culture to reduce social inequalities. For these reasons, the program is one of the case studies in the training activities of the International School of Cultural Heritage (Fondazione Scuola Beni Attività Culturali, Italy).

The project takes place in four steps:

1st step—historical and artistic documentation;

2nd step—BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) photogrammetric survey of Romanesque architecture and art;

3rd step—data processing in a school multimedia laboratory using Autodesk software (Zephyr, Recap, Meshmixer);

4th step—3D printing of prototype tactile devices in the school fab lab.

### **References**

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

# *Officina Degli Errori***: An Extended Experiment to Bring Constructionist Approaches to Public Schools in Bologna**

**Sara Ricciardi, Stefano Rini, and Fabrizio Villa**

**Abstract** In this contribution we describe an extended experiment to bring constructionist approaches to public schools in Bologna. Specifically, we focus on our latest project called *Officina degli Errori*, which is an extended teacher training program for primary school teachers based on tinkering. We highlight our motivation, the structure of *Officina degli Errori* and the lessons learned co-designing the activities and implementing them in the reality of public schools in Bologna. We also interviewed teachers to understand the critical issues affecting implementation of constructionist approaches in public primary schools.

**Keywords** Constructionism · Tinkering · Public primary school · Teacher training

# **1 Introduction**

The basic goal of*Officina degli Errori* is to provide teacher training and strong support to constructionist practices in the classroom through tinkering. Through this project, we are also interested in exploring and understanding what changes are needed in the school's organization to enable proper implementation of these practices. In Sect. 2, we describe the origins of the idea, its associated values, and the close collaboration between the researchers (science) and teachers (education) involved in co-designing the activities for schools. Section 3 describes the activity carried out from September 2018 to June 2019, lasting the entire school year. Conclusions and future prospects are discussed in Sect. 4.

S. Ricciardi (B) · F. Villa

INAF-OAS, via Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
S. Rini IC12 Bologna, Via Bartolini 2, 40139 Bologna, Italy

© The Author(s) 2021

D. Scaradozzi et al. (eds.), *Makers at School, Educational Robotics and Innovative Learning Environments*, Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems 240, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77040-2\_22

165

#### **2 Values, Aims and First Round of Co-design**

The authors launched *Officina degli Errori* after more than five years' involvement in science education and outreach activities. We begin our description of our approach by briefly mentioning how we came to be involved in constructionist practices. The starting point was a typical lecture given at "Marella" primary school within Istituto Comprensivo 12 (IC12) in Bologna, which had been requested by S. Rini, a teacher at the school at the time. The lecture was on cosmology and was delivered by S. Ricciardi. As a researcher at INAF (National Institute of Astrophysics) in Bologna, S. Ricciardi was actively involved in analyzing data and publishing papers on the European Space Agency (ESA) Planck satellite [1]. She prepared a lesson for seven-year-olds on the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background), the first light in our universe, and about the Planck satellite and her personal involvement in the research. The lesson went very well, the children were amazed, and everybody was satisfied. It is important to say that this was the expected outcome, given the known appeal of the subjects, which include dark matter and dark energy, and the origin and fate of the universe. As F. Villa, the third author of this paper and fellow INAF researcher, had had similar experiences, we discussed whether the students truly learned something from such lectures. We were particularly interested in the "wow factor" of experimental cosmology and, more generally, astronomy, and whether the experience was truly positive for everyone in the science education classroom.

We discussed it with teachers and concluded that children who were already interested in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) were certainly inspired. We noticed that this was not the case for all children. We believe self-stereotypes (socio-economic conditions, gender issues, family culture) are already strong in elementary schoolchildren [2], and, hence, that some children might not feel they are smart enough to be involved in STEM.

This reflection made us rethink our work in the classroom and inspired us to find a better way to express our values, including the basic concepts of trial and error in science research, and the sharing of knowledge and skills.

We identified what, in our view, are the top characteristics that should be met by all educational activities in the sphere of astrophysics and STEM in general:

Frontier research is based on new ideas, and exploring new techniques and technologies. Obviously, there is no set road map to follow to get to the final destination, since most things are under development, and researchers use their expertise to build and develop things from scratch. In more than 15 years' experience developing the ESA Planck satellite and more than 20 years developing new instrumentation and codes for astrophysics, we have come to see that creativity is one of the main drivers, especially at the start of a research project.

Although there is no doubt that (frontier) research requires creativity, children generally have a different perception of research (and researchers). Hence, another characteristic should be added to the list:

#### (xxii) **Creative**: activities should be designed to stimulate creativity and invention.

We had an opportunity to study and improve our understanding, thanks to the online material and MOOC (massive online open courses) offered by the Tinkering Studio at the San Francisco Exploratorium [3–5]. We also drew inspiration from the work of Mitch Resnick and the Lifelong Kindergarten group, and their vision of a STEM pedagogy that aims to be inclusive (low floor), democratic and, at the same time, allows projects to evolve (high ceiling), allowing children to build knowledge that is personal and meaningful to them (wide walls) [6, 7].

Tinkering is a holistic way to engage people in STEM subjects, by mixing them with art and combining hi-tech materials with low-tech, recycled ones. Knowledge is not merely transmitted from teacher to learner, but is actively constructed in the mind (and the hands) of the learner. Constructionism [8] suggests that learners are more likely to develop new insights and understandings while they are actively engaged in making an external artifact. This method supports the construction of knowledge within the context of building personally meaningful artifacts, and the more selfdirected the work is, the more meaningful the learning becomes.

From 2014, we offered several workshops to students in our local community based on the activities originally developed by the Tinkering Studio. We have been collaborating with teachers to design, promote and deliver hands-on, self-directed and playful activities to engage children in STEM, focusing particularly on gender inclusion [2].

By 2017 our labs had matured and were ready to be taken to a larger arena. Hence, in October to December 2017, we took an informal program of four tinkering activities to Bologna's Museum of Industrial Heritage and named it *Officina degli Errori*. We worked with a group of 20 children aged 6–12, over four workshops held on Saturday afternoons in the museum's conference area [9–12]. In the 2018/2019 school year, we offered a training course at the museum for primary school teachers in Emilia Romagna, to help them to become more autonomous tinkerers in their classrooms, and also to develop new insights into how these practices can work in the ecosystem of Italian public schools. These activities were attended by around 16 teachers and around 400 students. We also hosted a shorter version of this training course at Istituto Comprensivo 12 in Bologna, involving 20 teachers and their students (about 500).

#### **3** *Officina Degli Errori***: Tinkering Goes to School**

*Officina degli Errori* was an extended teacher training program lasting from September 2018 to June 2019. We organized this experience in three blocks:

**Experiencing**: We organized three intensive sessions in early September, where we developed the building blocks. We presented the constructionist framework in pedagogical terms, drawing parallels with the way the scientific research community works, and we discussed the ideas of constructivist epistemology, following the path of Piaget [13] and Khun [14].

We hosted three hands-on workshops where teachers experienced the constructionist approach through tinkering. We had a group of 15 teachers and three facilitators and we proposed several classic workshops originally developed by the Tinkering Studio, which we tailored to our audience (e.g., scribbling machines, paper automata, marble machines);

**Engaging**: we provided the teachers with a kit containing 9 motors, 20 cables, and 20 battery holders so they could try the scribbling machine with their classes, and hopefully continue using the materials in other creative ways. We invited the teachers to come to the museum with their students and fellow teachers to participate in a workshop, conducted by experienced facilitators. We also invited another teacher, who had already participated in the class workshop, to be a facilitator. This gave us a good student/facilitator ratio of about 6 to 1, and we created a relaxed environment where teachers could facilitate a challenging workshop, perhaps for the first time, without feeling overwhelmed. We also provided a space where teachers could just observe their students and reflect, without the urge to intervene;

**Reflecting**: we gave teachers more than four months to try different things in their classrooms, providing them with feedback and assistance. We also asked them authentic questions to help them and ourselves reflect. We asked them to describe their feelings when they first tried tinkering as "students." Specifically, we discussed group composition, how they prepared the groups and how things went, focusing particularly on the participation of girls. At the end, we asked them to think about whether tinkering could be organized in their schools, in terms of space, time, and human resources. We also asked them to report their activities to the other teachers in a final session in late June. The final step from our point of view was a recent interview with some of the teachers.

Our goal was mainly to bring tinkering and constructionist approaches to public schools in Bologna, especially in areas where there is a higher risk of student dropout or difficulties integrating hands-on STEM workshops in formal school activities. This means supporting teachers far beyond the workshops, and helping them with all they need to get started. For this reason, our program was offered free of charge and hosted at the Museum of Industrial Heritage in Bologna. We gave teachers a kit they could use in their classrooms, and the opportunity to facilitate a couple of tinkering sessions in relaxed conditions. We also gave them some guidance on collecting materials and designing new settings. The main differences with earlier training courses we had organized were the time scale (very extended), the ability to offer materials free of charge, and the commitment to each teacher we trained to facilitate at least one workshop with their students.

#### **4 Conclusions and Future Prospects**

From a preliminary analysis of the reports and interviews with teachers, it is clear that this experience was very successful in terms of the teachers' engagement, the quality of the materials and the support provided. Constructionist practices are difficult to implement in schools, and are contingent on teachers making a special effort. One common issue for schools is the availability of physical space. In the schools that have an *atelier creativo* (or a similar environment) or access to one, teachers do tinkering more often (every day/three times a week), and the practice is easier to incorporate into their everyday learning environments. When such settings are not available, sessions are less frequent and more intensive (e.g., one full week of tinkering twice a year). Adapting a classroom for tinkering can be demanding even for a teacher who already uses cooperative learning and innovative teaching styles (e.g., *scuola senza zaino*), simply because there is not enough space to store materials and tools. Teachers have to re-configure spaces every time they use them. Another important issue is the number of facilitators available. We suggested working as a pair with the other class teacher (all the classes have a *tempo pieno* schedule—full-time, including afternoons—and two main teachers, or are module-based with at least three teachers) but this was not always possible. It is extremely hard to facilitate a workshop in these conditions, with only one teacher to about 28 students, especially if there is no dedicated environment. Conversely, workshop facilitation was more relaxed and productive in schools with a better student to teacher ratio or in schools where coteaching could be arranged. Despite the teachers' motivation and their readiness to overcome difficulties, they were often deterred by the general constraints of how their schools were organized.

On the positive side, some teachers reported that they intend to include constructionist approaches in their teaching practices, not limiting them to STEM, but also applying them to other subjects (such as language). The focus of training for teachers in STEM and educational technology is often on the devices and the literacy associated with the proposed activities. Instead, our extended training offered a more general "pedagogy," which, hopefully, every teacher can tweak to their interests and their class's needs, building genuinely new knowledge not restricted to a specific discipline.

After this experience, we need to continue analyzing the interviews with teachers and highlight what can really help to establish these practices in public schools, without overloading teachers. We intend to continue designing and offering *Officina degli Errori*, working with any partner interested in spreading the constructionist approach and tinkering in Italian public schools. In today's knowledge society [15], the ability to develop 21st-century skills (e.g., [16]) is a crucial question of democracy. For us teachers and researchers employed by the Ministry of Education, University and Research, it is a firm moral commitment to help schools innovate and offer the best practices in education.

During these years of practice, we developed a particular interest in tinkering as an effective way to engage girls in STEM. To help schools understand the value of these practices, we have launched a preparatory program with the Department of Psychology at the University of Bologna on students' perception of science and technology, with a particular focus on gender differences (190 school students). INAF and IC12 have also co-designed a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) learning space, which includes tinkering with technology (coding and robotics), storytelling and interacting in pairs, with areas dedicated to experimenting, showing and presenting, and sharing. We were also interested in opening up those approaches to secondary schools, so in the 2018/2019 school year we collaborated with IC12 in the afternoon program "Girls code it better." Eighteen 18 girls aged 11 to 13 took part in the ESA challenge "MOON BASE CAMP," which saw them work with INAF experts, a maker from Bologna FabLab and the teacher who coordinated the overall project on 3D modeling and printing.

We want to offer *Officina degli Errori* to teachers every year, but to be effective we have to engage closely with them and involve them in designing the activities. From our interviews we found that external conditions (mainly the way schools are organized and the availability of space) can be a huge deterrent to these practices. This is why, in addition to tinkering tools and strategies, we also need to provide an "organizational framework" to help them bring those activities to Italian public schools.

#### **References**

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

# **Service Learning: A Proposal for the Maker Approach**

**Irene Frazzarin and Danila Leonori**

**Abstract** Education plays a vital role in promoting the acquisition of 21st-century skills. This is why it is important to implement a social intervention project in which makers and technology are key to the learning process, and students can come together to deal with issues within their community.

**Keywords** Service learning · Learning by doing · Project-based learning · Maker approach · Coding · Digital storytelling

Education plays a vital role in promoting the acquisition of 21st-century skills. However the "pedagogical methods many educational programmes use today primarily serve a standardised, industrial, content-delivery-and-reproduction model, with little or no room for learners to acquire or demonstrate skills beyond content knowledge. This has meant that such systems have increasingly diverged from the needs of those being educated, today's society, and the current global economic system" [1]. This is the reason why a school's physical position in the community is crucial. The reality is that there is often no connection between it and the classroom, the very place where knowledge is taught: access is now far more widespread than ever before, thanks to the extensive availability of technological resources. We teachers and the children in our schools are witnessing a significant rise in social inequalities, while values such as acceptance, solidarity, and civil cooperation are on the decline.

In light of this, we have taken this opportunity to implement a social intervention project to enable students to come together to deal with issues within their community. We decided that makers and technology are key to the learning process in this project.

We consider service learning to be the ideal way to breathe new life into school. The aim is to view it as a key establishment within its community, where local

D. Leonori IIS Mattei, Recanati, Italy

I. Frazzarin (B)

<sup>1</sup> IC Zanella, Padua, Italy

<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2021

D. Scaradozzi et al. (eds.), *Makers at School, Educational Robotics and Innovative Learning Environments*, Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems 240, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77040-2\_23

citizens and associations can return to the social dimension of learning, improve their relational skills and foster a sense of community.

Just as important as disciplinary skills are 21st-century skills, such as creativity critical thinking, collaboration, cooperation, and communication, which can all be strengthened. As Fiorin argues "[…] Strongly rooted in the experience of both the students and the social context, service learning enhances the value of the students' protagonism, and employs the best active and socio-constructive methodologies"<sup>1</sup> [2].

Added to this is the impact of the maker approach. As Donaldson argues "learning happens best when learners construct their understanding through a process of constructing things to share with others" [3].

## **1 Service Learning, Coding and Digital Storytelling: A Methodological Proposal**

Service learning began as a teaching and learning strategy that connects academic curricula to community problem-solving. It was originally intended for university students, but today's participants are usually elementary, middle, high, and postsecondary schools, with the backing of the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research and the "Avanguardie educative—INDIRE" movement [4].

It is an approach that teaches students how to think rather than what to think [5, 6]. Service learning projects are problem-based. Students or participants learn and develop through active participation, which eventually leads to civic engagement, thereby meeting needs within a community. It is also part of a school's curriculum, enhancing and building upon the students' knowledge and key skills.

Project-based learning is a comprehensive perspective whose goal is to engage students in investigation. Within this framework, students seek solutions to nontrivial problems by "asking and refining questions, debating ideas, making predictions, designing plans and/or experiments, collecting and analyzing data, drawing conclusions, communicating their ideas and findings to others, asking new questions, and creating artifacts" [7].

#### **2 The Maker Movement Approach and Coding**

Our project was introduced at Istituto Mattei, a secondary school in Recanati, at the beginning of 2019, and will probably continue for the next two years.

During this first year, 100 students ranging from 16 to 18 years will take part in the project. Our students are active participants, in keeping with the maker approach, and they will develop team working skills that will enable them to come up with

<sup>1</sup> Own translation.

creative solutions to real-life problems affecting the entire school initially, and then the entire community.

They will create an app, drawing on a range of traditional construction materials, as is usual in maker pedagogy, but also embracing the unique properties of digital tools [8].

The project is in two phases:

#### *2.1 Phase 1: "Welcome" App Prototype*

The prototype will be developed by first-year students to deal with the main problem in their school community: finding your way around the building. The prototype can include functions specific to the school, which has a maze-like structure that is easy to get lost in, and it can be hard to find the right classroom. It also has many labs; and it would be useful for "school consumers" or new students to have information about the school's amenities, places and rules. The year 11 students will use free tools like Unity 3d and C# coding language, whereas older students will be introduced to Android coding.

The experiment focuses on the Think, Make, Improve (TMI) cycle, an adaptive decision-making process. This method helps teachers to design their lesson structure and students to understand the process and organize their work. Students will apply the principles of adapting, designing and creating [9], to get into a maker mindset, and increase their learning activities and learning outcomes.

By "adapting" we mean the freedom to use a technology for new purposes. For example, the Unity 3d software is normally used for video games, whereas in our project, students create a virtual school with it to help newcomers find their way around the school.

As students designing and creating software, we believe they will apply their skills in cooperation with others, and come up with different solutions, which they can also combine.

Throughout the process, students will be exposed to the "learning by doing" method, coding, and project- based and problem-based learning.

#### *2.2 Phase 2: The "Welcome" App*

In the second year, the same students will manage the Welcome app for the local community, and will coach new students during its development. They will be expected to give their new colleagues useful advice about the coding process and also about the learning path they themselves have already been on.

Students are divided into heterogeneous groups based on the needs of the community and will create a geolocation-based app that operates as a virtual tour guide to help Italian and foreign members of the community. Functions will include identifying available resources in their area, historical events, nearby institutions and the customs of foreign citizens.

Users have access to a lot of information, thanks to AR (augmented reality) technology. By scanning a retailer's door, they might see a video interview pop up or the rules of a public place, or information about future events.

The app will need to be multilingual (right from the start screen), to encourage maximum inclusion. Italian will always be the language spoken in videos, but there will be subtitles in several other languages.

The students will interview foreign and Italian retailers in their neighborhoods, as well as local elderly residents, and will record their stories about migration and life in general. The video clips from these interviews will be geo-localized and shared through a child-friendly app called Storymap. The aim of sharing these videos on the neighborhood's social media pages and the school website is to increase local awareness and gather useful feedback.

Maintaining an open communication channel with the community is fundamental to understanding and bringing all those involved closer together on a deeper personal level. According to Bruner, in "the analysis of the stories we tell about our lives: our "autobiographies […] In the end, we *become* the autobiographical narratives by which we 'tell about' our lives" [10].

Thus, by working on the prototype first and then on the Welcome app itself, students will take part in peer-to-peer teaching and will be able to deal with small failures by identifying and correcting errors.

#### **3 Objectives**

The learning objectives we have set will be adapted for the different classes involved in the project. These are: service learning objectives and curricular objectives.

#### *3.1 Service Learning Objectives for Students*

These objectives will be differentiated depending on what grade the students are in. Overall we can summarize them as follows:

• Helping immigrants and refugees learn the Italian language and culture for everyday and more immediate uses.

# *3.2 Curricular Objectives and Key Competences*

The following objectives were planned for a secondary school, although they could be used at and adapted to different school levels: history, economics and law: studying the history of migration flows towards Europe and Italy:

# *3.3 Expected Results*

Service learning enhances 21st-century skills, and the project's results are expected to have an impact on the students' cognitive and emotional development.

Technology literacy: thanks to their thorough understanding of today's technology, students will be capable of choosing the best (virtual or physical) tools to complete the task in hand.

#### **4 Conclusion**

As Canuto says, projects in service learning offer multiple opportunities to receive positive input, to practice a foreign language through authentic and meaningful interactions, to reflect and become aware of one's own identity and culture, and to appreciate the linguistic and cultural differences of others [11]. In short, it develops the intercultural abilities required in the eight key competences of the European Framework of Reference.

The main feature of service learning is working on social solidarity projects/actions that are not disconnected from school learning; rather, they are fully integrated into the curriculum, and thus help improve the well-being of the class.

Many service-learning–type projects have been tested in Italy since the setup of the SL (service learning) Working Group, approved by the Head of Education of the Ministry of Education, University and Research, which was formalized in November 2016, with the participation of three Regions (Calabria, Lombardy, Tuscany). The most recent ScAR (*Scuola Attiva Risorse*) project was based on the synergy between the Polytechnic University of Milan, schools in the Milan area, the Municipality of Milan and other public and private institutions [12].

The National Digital School Plan [13] also emphasizes the importance of advanced heritage education and suggests that all students should be offered an opportunity to experience the digital management of cultural heritage. Moreover, European policies [14] acknowledge the right of every citizen to access and participate freely in cultural life.

Given the experiences mentioned above, we hope service learning will also be tested in our communities to enable further research, experimentation and dissemination in this area.

#### **References**

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

# **Learning by Making. 3D Printing Guidelines for Teachers**

#### **Stefano Di Tore, Giuseppe De Simone, and Michele Domenico Todino**

**Abstract** For many years now, and particularly since the 1930s, educational research has focused on the idea that all authentic education comes from experience. Nowadays, activism has found a natural affinity with the maker movement. Fab labs and creative ateliers have become more popular, especially for educational purposes, suggesting the coming of new types of "learning by doing." However, these new forms of "learning by doing" must take account of the technologies already present in a particular creative space used by makers. These technologies are mainly: 3D printers, CNC milling machines, 3D scanners, laser cutters, etc. This short paper begins with a premise of educational ergonomics, to introduce teachers, media educators and *animatori digitali* (digital coordinators) to the didactic implications of introducing different human–machine interfaces (HMI) into their practices. In particular we describe the main features of SLA and SLS 3D printing. The impacts we discuss of 3D printing are resolution, types of printing materials, average printing times, post-processing, and cost. We have selected these criteria because it has been documented that their impact is very heavy in certain school subjects. For example, an FDM 3D printer can be useful in terms of the ease of printing an object, but it may not reach the necessary level of detail for a meticulous reproduction of art objects or precision mechanisms that an SLA 3D printer can achieve.

**Keywords** 3D printer · Slicer · Didactics · Fab lab

# **1 Introduction**

In recent years, educational research has seen that the technology used to design and support processes in development and engineering can also stimulate teaching– learning in general terms, but particularly in certain subjects. Moreover, the spread of digital manufacturing spaces and the increasing popularity of the maker movement [1] appear to have opened up new theoretical and practical possibilities for

S. Di Tore (B) · G. De Simone · M. D. Todino

University of Salerno, Salerno, Italy e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2021

D. Scaradozzi et al. (eds.), *Makers at School, Educational Robotics and Innovative Learning Environments*, Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems 240, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77040-2\_24

pedagogical activism [2–5]. However, the educational potential of digital manufacturing spaces is contingent on a proper understanding of all the distinctive features of the technologies that are found in these spaces. This short paper aims to introduce teachers and, more specifically, media educators and *animatori digitali* (digital coordinators) to digital fabrication, through a focus on educational ergonomics [6]. We look at the didactic implications of employing the different forms of HMI [7] that can be found in 3D printing technology. This work analyzes two widely used 3D printing technologies, namely fused deposition modeling (FDM) and stereo lithography apparatus (SLA), and suggests what the implications of their educational use may be in terms of: resolution, possible printing materials, average printing times, post-processing, and cost. The criteria in this list were selected on the basis of documented experience [7]; they significantly affect applications in different subjects. 3D objects can be designed in CAD software of varying complexity, such as Autodesk Fusion 360 (a free version is available for students and educators), Rhinoceros 3D, SugarCAD, and Tinkercad. Fusion and Rhinoceros are designed for professional use, whereas SugarCAD and Tinkercad are more suited to educational use because they have easy-to-use graphic interfaces. After the 3D model is created, it must be imported (usually in.stl file format) into a slicing program, which will "slice" it into a series of thin layers or 2D levels, in preparation for 3D printing. Slicing programs also allow users to set basic parameters for printing, such as, the type of filling, the thickness of each level, the number and thickness of the external "walls," extruder temperature, etc. The most popular software programs for slicing are: Ultimaker Cura, Slic3r and Simplify3D (the first two are open source). After slicing the model, these programs create a G-code file, the de facto standard format, which can be used with any kind of 3D printer.

#### **2 Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D Printers**

Fused deposition modeling printers use thermoplastic material to print 3D objects, which they achieve by pushing melted plastic through an extruder and depositing it on a printing plate (see Fig. 1). There are different types of thermoplastic materials (generally filaments) on the global market, which differ in terms of their properties (i.e., resistance, elasticity, magnetic and aesthetic properties). FDM technology is probably the most widespread and inexpensive, on account of the printing materials it uses and the cost of the machine itself. This kind of printer is useful for creating 3D objects that need cantilever parts or support structures (scaffolds) during printing (see Fig. 1). However, the layer resolution is not very high, and printed objects can appear rough and unrefined (see Fig. 2). Support structures are substrates of material that are printed to enable the extruder to print curves and protrusions. This prevents molten material from falling onto the printer base. More specifically, support structures have predefined forms (determined by the software), or can be customized by the maker. Some FDM models have a double extruder and can print support structures from water-soluble materials. In this case, once the support structures have been

**Fig. 1** FDM (right) and SLA (left) 3D printing technologies

**Fig. 2** The same object printed with FDM (left) and SLA (right). *Source* https://www.3dhubs.com/ knowledge-base/key-design-considerations-3d-printing

printed, they can be dissolved in water, leaving no residues on the final model. It could be inferred from the above, that, given the many restrictions on printable shapes, the design process is not completely free with FDM technology. A double extruder completely eliminates the issue of residues and inaccuracies caused by support structures, but resolution and the properties of materials are still something to take into account (e.g., when printing a building model to scale, some elements, like pipes, cavities and other details, are too small for FDM 3D printer resolution, and have to be redesigned). On average, the maximum resolution of a non-industrial FDM printer in terms of layers is about 0.2 mm (not considering small movements on the printer's x and y axes). This resolution is affected by other factors, such as filament material and model, temperature, humidity, extruder problems. These factors can also have a negative impact on the replicability of the 3D model produced. Therefore, although FDM technology is an excellent opportunity when learning to design simple objects, it is not suitable for detailed elements. SLA printers, which usually have higher resolutions, allow makers to overcome this limit.

#### **3 Stereo Lithography Apparatus (SLA) 3D Printers**

Stereo lithography apparatus (SLA) technology uses photoreactive resins. SLA 3D printers operate with an excess of liquid plastic that is solidified by exposure to light from a laser or a projector (see Fig. 1). As with FDM technology, SLA printers build 2D layers to create 3D objects designed in CAD software, but the physical process is completely different. SLA printers have a laser that solidifies each layer, one after another, starting from the top of the 3D object. This means there are more issues relating to supports than with FDM technology, which require more expertise and attention on the part of the maker during the design phase. Even cantilevered parts can be printed without support structures in FDM, but almost all shapes need a scaffold with SLA technology. Indeed, almost all 3D objects printed with SLA need a support structure, whereas many objects can be printed in FDM without one. Also, SLA technology and resins are often more expensive than equivalent materials in FDM. There are numerous kinds of SLA resins, each with its own physical and aesthetic properties. Finally, the maximum resolution in SLA printing is (on average) 0.025 mm.

# **4 FDM Versus SLA: A Comparison for the Teaching Setting**

Summarizing and extending our previous considerations, SLA technology offers makers more opportunities because it produces higher 3D resolution; however, more time has to be spent on the design of models. Another consideration is that SLA does not have some of the issues that FDM has: molten material deposited on the printer base; quantity of extruded material; filament pulling, etc. For these reasons SLA printer technology has a resolution of 0.025 mm instead of the 0.2 mm found in FDM technology. Consequently, SLA technology can print complex objects (such as dentures for dental technology courses). However, increasing the resolution of a 3D object means increasing post-production time.

Although FDM printing sometimes requires post-production processes to eliminate inaccuracies and vertical lines caused by the thickness of the layers or by non–water-soluble supports, the post-production and post-processing times for SLA printers tend to be longer on average. Models produced by SLA printers have to be "cured" in two stages. In the first stage, the 3D object is exposed to ultraviolet rays to finish the solidification process, and in the second, it is sanded to eliminate any marks where the supports were held. To summarize, makers should consider the final purpose of their 3D object when deciding which 3D printer technology to use. FDM printers with dual extruders provide greater design freedom and produce reasonable results when detail is not important (e.g., toys, medium-sized gears, boxes and containers, etc.). This makes FDM technology ideal for educational settings, where it can be used to introduce the basic concepts of CAD design, and for printing scientific or mechanical objects that do not exceed the maximum resolution parameters. SLA printers, on the other hand, do not provide maximum design freedom, because they rely on support structures that are sometimes difficult to remove. For this reason, SLA is not recommended for teaching CAD design, and SLA printers are recommended for 3D objects where detail is important (e.g., reproductions of monuments, jewelry for art institutes, and, as mentioned, dentures for dental technology courses, etc.).

#### **5 Conclusion**

We finish this short paper by mentioning some of the many repositories containing files of 3D printable objects that are available on the internet for free download. These include Thingverse, MyMiniFactory, Pinshape, Cults, GrabCad, CGTrader etc., and have entire sections dedicated to educational purposes. These repositories often contain information to help makers on: (1) which 3D printing technology is most suitable for the model; (2) what settings to use during printing. These online 3D model repositories are a good starting point for learning about and appreciating 3D printing, and for getting a better understanding of SLA and FDM technologies, their similarities, differences, opportunities and trends. Lastly, we would like to clarify that we have focused on FDM and SLA technologies in this paper because they are both suitable for mainly non-industrial uses. Other technologies, such as SLS, DLP, SLM, and MSLA, are too expensive for educational purposes.

#### **References**

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

**Roboticsness—***Gymnasium Mentis*

#### **Paola Lisimberti and Domenico Aprile**

**Abstract** *Roboticsness* is an innovative teaching/learning approach based on the European Digital Agenda. The Lego robotics classroom is a living lab where students and teachers work together and share the enthusiasm of finding solutions thanks to new technologies. Project work and prototypes are produced, but the main objective is to train new prosumers to anticipate and prepare for the needs of a complex world.

**Keywords** Arduino · Coding · Creativity · Coworking · Problem-solving · Competences

### **1 The Project: LEIS Classroom**

### *1.1 Goals*

The Lego Education Innovation Studio (LEIS) robotics classroom was founded in 2014 at the Pepe Scientific High School in Ostuni (Puglia, Italy), where the Roboticsness [1] project (based on the Lego curriculum) has been conducted for five years. Here, a new philosophy of education is practiced: students are taught to think with machines. *Roboticsness* is an innovative teaching/learning approach based on the European Digital Agenda and civil law rules on robotics. The different manifestations of artificial intelligence have initiated a new industrial revolution and their diffusion has prompted the European Parliament to express itself on the matter through the Resolution of 16 February 2017 "Civil law rules on robotics". Rules to regulate the development of these technologies without conditioning the innovation process are necessary. The European document draws attention to the shortage of ICT professionals in education and in the workforce (no. 41) [2]. The growth in robotics requires Member States to develop more flexible education and training

P. Lisimberti (B)

Liceo Pepe Calamo, Ostuni, Brindisi, Italy

D. Aprile Liceo Scientifico "Fermi-Monticelli", Brindisi, Italy

© The Author(s) 2021

187

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systems, so as to ensure that the knowledge strategies for women match the needs of the robot economy (no. 42) [2]. Our goal is to move past the traditional concept of school as a system of linear transmission of knowledge from teacher to learner. Our school is based on learning by doing and on prototype construction.

Revolutions are made by people. Schools are made up of people: teachers and students.

How much distance is there between digital natives and teachers? Can schools take this route? Can we reach them, meet them?

#### *1.2 Teaching Methods and Strategies*

The main point of this experience is to learn in cooperative teams, where each member brings her individual skills to a project to build a new idea and a sense of community. Active learning, peer collaboration, personalized learning, learning by doing, and learning by mistake are the teaching practices of the robotics classroom. Teachers implement a process-driven approach, based on IBL (inquiry-based learning) and PBL (problem-based learning). This means starting with an analysis of (one or more) real problems (e.g., data log of acceleration in uniformly accelerated motion) and working backwards to an ideal model, in order to appreciate how it differs from reality. This approach leads students to analyze the whole problem, drawing on skills in mathematics, physics, engineering and technology.

#### *1.3 Cooperative Learning and Cooperative Teaching*

The teacher acts as a coach to support learning. No one is excluded during robotics activities: everyone works in groups, learning to interact with others. Building and programming a robot is the best way to promote digital culture, information technology, critical thinking, creativity [3], curiosity, initiative, persistence, and the value of error (Fig. 1).

#### **2 Experiences**

## *2.1 Curricular Robotics for First-Year Students (Aged 14–15, Science-Based High School)*

The kinematics teaching unit (six hours) is led by two co-teachers in the robotics classroom and the physics laboratory. Students work in groups: each group builds a **Fig. 1** Human–machine interaction inspired by the Creation of Adam (Michelangelo Buonarroti)

robot (Lego Ev3) and programs it for an experiment in uniform linear motion. The activity consists of several steps:

# *2.2 STEM*

The Lego environment provides an innovative learning and teaching approach to STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematic) subjects. The number of female students enrolled in the project has increased in five years. Girls find it hard to take the initiative; gender-based teams form and exclude girls; boys are reluctant to accept girls in a context where there are machines. Girls are autonomous in programming; their attitudes and qualities are different from those of male students; they are resilient; they know how to solve problems; they recognize strengths; they disassemble and reassemble robots; they program and reprogram machines; they reach objectives [4].

#### *2.3 Participation in Exhibitions and Fairs*

The project involves developing robotic applications and/or using robots for learning and for creating activities in which they are used. This has enabled students to take an active part in some of the most important exhibitions and fairs in Italy and Europe. Groups of students have attended:

• Maker Faire Rome, Europe's largest event on innovation (2015 and 2017)

• RomeCup, the event organized and managed by Fondazione Mondo Digitale, which offers an extraordinary immersive experience on the present and future (2014, 2015, 2017).

#### **3 Results and Conclusions**

During the 2014/2019 five-year period, the project showed significant results in terms of frequency, educational outcomes and overcoming the gender gap.

The indicators for identifying outcomes were:

Throughout the project, the average attendance of enrolled students was around 98%.

The percentage of female students enrolled in the project grew exponentially (by up to 75%), fully in line with PNSD (National Plan for Digital Education) action #20 "*Girls in tech and science*" (reducing the gender gap) (Figs. 2 and 3).

Furthermore, the impact was positive on the subject performances of both male and female students. Performance in science subjects (particularly physics) improved for 70% of students compared to results in the first four months and the previous year.

**Fig. 2** Number of students during the 5-year project

**Fig. 3** Female students—programming step

The aim of the project is not to replace "obsolete" content and knowledge with something that is "fun and modern," but rather to make the transmission of "knowledge" more effective and to ensure that school can be closer to the everyday reality of digital natives, who are surrounded by captivating digital tools and robotics.

In keeping with the goals of the project and of several international ICT frameworks, the activities develop the following competences:

#### **References**

Creative intelligence goes beyond existing knowledge and syntheses to pose new questions, offer new solutions, and shape works that push the boundaries of genres or shape new ones. Creativity is based on one or more recognised disciplines and requires judgements of quality or acceptability to be made by an informed environment (2006)

4. Campustore.: #womeninstem education edition, Paola Lisimberti, Girls do it better. ( 2017) https://youtu.be/SpkimcCWXGU

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

# **Curricular and Not Curricular Robotics in Formal, Non-formal and Informal Education**

# **Educational Robotics and Social Relationships in the Classroom**

**Laura Screpanti , Lorenzo Cesaretti, Michele Storti, and David Scaradozzi**

**Abstract** In a constructionist environment, robotics engagingly teaches traditional concepts, while applying them to compelling real-world problems. Educational robotics can help students develop soft skills, like teamwork, and improve the way they relate to each other. Researchers in different disciplines have devoted many efforts to exploring this dimension. One tool that may be useful for exploring the relational dimension of these activities is the sociogram. The case study reported in this paper presents findings from an experience which brought educational robotics, coding and tinkering to fourth graders in a primary school in Ancona (Italy). A questionnaire and a sociogram were administered to students, during curricular activities, before and after the project took place. The findings highlight some improvements in students' relations, but more investigation is needed into the process of describing students' relationships and their development in a project involving innovative methodologies and technology.

**Keywords** Educational robotics · Sociogram · Social network analysis · STEM · Constructionism · Coding · Tinkering

D. Scaradozzi e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
L. Cesaretti · M. Storti TALENT Srl, Osimo, Italy

D. Scaradozzi LSIS, CNRS, UMR 7296, Marseille, France

© The Author(s) 2021 D. Scaradozzi et al. (eds.), *Makers at School, Educational Robotics and Innovative Learning Environments*, Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems 240, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77040-2\_26

195

L. Screpanti (B) · L. Cesaretti · D. Scaradozzi Università Politecnica Delle Marche, Ancona, Italy e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
L. Cesaretti e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### **1 Introduction**

Students' ability to learn is inextricably linked to the classroom environment. Developing and mastering new skills requires students to feel safe and supported. Educational robotics (ER) brings new tools and methodologies into the classroom for acquiring technological, social and multidisciplinary skills and competences [1–12]. During ER activities, students usually work in small teams, which encourages them to collaborate. This helps students who are isolated to improve their social relationships. Sociometric tests developed by Moreno [13–15] can help teachers examine the structure and interactions of a group, and get valuable data about social relationships in the classroom. Sociometric tests can help focus the teacher's awareness of students who may not feel connected and need extra attention, and this helps create a supportive learning environment.

Sociometry has been applied to educational research in many contexts. Exploring this approach within ER activities is rather uncommon, but one example can be found [10].

The aim of the present work is to explore the suitability of this approach for understanding classroom interactions.

#### **2 Materials and Methods**

#### *2.1 Participants and Procedure*

In early 2018, two classes at a primary school (ISCED 1, grade 4) in Italy were involved in a project in which educational robotics was brought into the classroom. An external educator carried out the activities and received support from the classes' regular teachers. Consent to participate was provided for 26 students in group A, and 22 students in group B. Students were involved in activities related to environmental issues, such as separate waste collection and forest conservation. First, they explored the environmental issues; then, they wrote stories about them and brainstormed to choose elements and ideas to create a tale invented by the whole classroom. After this preliminary phase, students assembled and programmed robots over four lessons (two hours per lesson) using Scratch and Lego WeDo 1. They were divided into groups of three or four and introduced to the subjects of robotics (mechanical structure of a robot, difference between robots and machines, sensors and motors) and programming (sequential instructions only). At the end of the short course, they were able to think about dramatizing the story on environmental issues through robots. The third phase of the project was dedicated to creating a stage background for the story through tinkering and using waste materials. The last phase of the project involved sharing the artifacts, the story and their work with parents and other friends. During a school festival the two groups showcased their experience by presenting their stories, short videos and pictures from the workshops.

#### *2.2 Methodology*

Students were asked to complete a questionnaire and a sociometric test at the start (BL) and end (PT) of the project. The questionnaire was administered on paper and the items were in Italian: three items asked about the relationship with the instructor and the methodologies used, two questions were about assembling and programming the robot, two were on their interest in this kind of activity in the future, and two were about having fun or cooperating with their companions.

The sociometric test consisted of four questions:

The sociometric test is a method used to get a description of interpersonal relations within a group and to stress the social status of each member. It mainly focuses on the affective-relational perspective (play) and on the perspective of a group working towards a common goal (study). The resulting sociogram represents members of the group as nodes and their relationships as edges. If there is no relationship between two nodes, no edge is shown on the graph. To examine the data from the sociometric test, a matrix (adjacency matrix) is built by replacing its elements with choices (value 1), rejections (value -1) or no choice or rejection (value 0).

Both the questionnaire and the sociometric test were developed by an expert educator and psychologist.

To check whether the structure of the social network changes over time, we analyzed BL and PT sociometric data and focused on the density, mean indegree and mean outdegree of the network. The density of the network is the ratio of the number of links to the number of possible links; it represents the connectedness of the network. Density is connected to distance, and the distance can represent the student's role in the network. Mean indegree and mean outdegree are measures of degree centrality that are appropriate for directed networks like the ones we obtained from the sociometric test. The sociometric test evaluated the students in two areas: play and study. For each area, students were able to jot down as many names as they wanted as "choices" (people they wanted to play or study with) or as "rejections" (people they did not want to play or study with). Paired t-tests of mean indegree and mean outdegree at BL and PT were performed in order to test the significance of the differences between the two paired samples. Change from BL to PT was assessed by means of the Wilcoxon signed rank test.

**Table 1** Mean values of answers to questionnaire items

\*Paired data showing a statistically significant difference (<sup>α</sup> <sup>=</sup> 0.05)

#### **3 Results**

Mean values and results from the Wilcoxon signed rank test for two paired groups of data for both group A and B are shown in Table 1. Specifically, the results from question 4 (fun with classmates) and 5 (good collaboration with my classmates) are shown in Fig. 1. The results from processing sociometric data are reported in Table 2.

A significant change in interest towards the robotics workshop was found (question 6) in both groups involved. No significant results were found for questions 4 and 5, but we can qualitatively observe that scores tend to be lower for PT. This negative trend seems to be corroborated by the sociometric analysis.

The results in Table 2 show that the project somehow increased each student's choices in the "play" area. No significant results were found in either group for the "study" area. The density of the network was not tested for significance, but it increased from BL to PT in both groups for both choices and rejections.

#### **4 Conclusion and Future Work**

Overall, the project recorded a high level of satisfaction in the groups involved (Table 1). Notably, the students' interest increased significantly (question 6). This result suggests that short workshop activities are effective in increasing interest in STEM subjects. Answers to questions 4 and 5 showed a decreasing or stable trend between BL and PT.

Conversely, the sociometric data in the area of play showed a significant increase in the mean number of choices. Moreover, although not significant, the same trend can also be observed in the areas of study and rejections (see Table 2). This is an exciting result that needs more investigation to uncover the underlying variables (for example, personal or group-related variables).

**Fig. 1** Results from question 4 (Q4) for groups A and B before the activities started (BL) and after the activities ended (PT)

The overall picture of these two classes was that, in group A, there were more popular students (those who received more choices than others) and more rejected students (those receiving more rejections than others) than in group B. The density of the network was not tested for significance, but it showed an interesting trend: it increased from BL to PT, showing that more relations grew out of the collaborative environment of the ER activities. This result is not unforeseen, as some of the relevant literature advocates ER's capacity to stimulate social skills [1, 3–12].

Nonetheless, the present research, and other research like it [10], shows that more questions need to be answered on methodological research grounds and on the study of social relations within a study group. Some students, in fact, did not improve their status after the ER activities, as in [10]. This issue should be examined in depth, perhaps by including a number of background variables in the study, like gender, race or socio-economic status. Furthermore, variables like the duration of the activities or the way groups are formed for particular activities may affect the creation of social relations and thus deserve more attention in future studies.

**Table 2** Results of the analysis of sociometric data

\*Paired data showing a statistically significant difference (<sup>α</sup> <sup>=</sup> 0.05)

#### **References**

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

# **Analysis of Educational Robotics Activities Using a Machine Learning Approach**

**Lorenzo Cesaretti, Laura Screpanti, David Scaradozzi, and Eleni Mangina**

**Abstract** This paper presents the preliminary results of using machine learning techniques to analyze educational robotics activities. An experiment was conducted with 197 secondary school students in Italy: the authors updated Lego Mindstorms EV3 programming blocks to record log files with coding sequences students had designed in teams. The activities were part of a preliminary robotics exercise. We used four machine learning techniques—logistic regression, support-vector machine (SVM), K-nearest neighbors and random forests—to predict the students' performance, comparing a supervised approach (using twelve indicators extracted from the log files as input for the algorithms) and a mixed approach (applying a k-means algorithm to calculate the machine learning features). The results showed that the mixed approach with SVM outperformed the other techniques, and that three predominant learning styles emerged from the data mining analysis.

**Keywords** Educational Robotics · Educational data mining · Problem-solving process identification

L. Screpanti · D. Scaradozzi

L. Cesaretti TALENT Srl, via Bachelet 23, 60027 Osimo, Ancona, Italy

#### E. Mangina School of Computer Science, University College Dublin, Belfield Dublin 4, Ireland

© The Author(s) 2021 D. Scaradozzi et al. (eds.), *Makers at School, Educational Robotics and Innovative Learning Environments*, Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems 240, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77040-2\_27

L. Cesaretti (B) · D. Scaradozzi Department of Information Engineering (DII), Università Politecnica Delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche, 60131 Ancona, Italy e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
LSIS - Umr CNRS 6168, Laboratoire Des Sciences de L'Information Et Des Systèmes, Equipe I&M (ESIL), case 925 - 163, avenue de Luminy, 13288 Marseille cedex 9, France

### **1 Introduction**

Educational Robotics (ER) is based on the constructionist learning theory proposed by Papert (1980). According to this theory, the construction of a personal and meaningful artifact promotes the construction of deep knowledge and provides a richer learning experience for students. When students design, build, program, debug and share robots, they are exploring the everyday phenomena in their lives in a new and playful way (Resnick et al. 1996). They are also improving their problem-solving and thinking skills (Scaradozzi et al. 2015, 2019b).

The spread of ER projects in schools all over the world (Miller and Nourbakhsh 2016) and the growing interest of teachers and policy-makers in this approach justify the research into new and more far-reaching ways to evaluate students' results. Researchers in the ER field have found a lack of quantitative analysis on how robotics can improve skills and increase the learning achievements of students (Benitti 2012; Alimisis 2013). For this reason, studies in recent years have focused on the evaluation of ER projects, employing qualitative (Liu 2010; Elkin et al. 2014), quantitative (Kandlhofer and Steinbauer 2016; Cesaretti et al. 2017; Scaradozzi et al. 2019a) and mixed methods (Kim et al. 2015; Chalmers 2018) to collect educational data. During a typical ER activity, students have to design a hardware or software solution to an open-ended problem and, generally, there are unlimited paths students can explore and implement. Using machine learning methods to collect and analyze ER data could help predict and classify students' behaviors, and discover latent structural patterns in large educational datasets (Berland et al. 2014).

Most studies in recent years (Berland et al. 2013; Blikstein et al. 2014; Chao 2016; Wang et al. 2017) have applied machine learning techniques to data gathered from students during programming activities without the physical presence of robots, and have obtained good results in identifying different patterns in specific coding tasks. This paper presents a research project that aims to analyze an introductory ER exercise using educational data mining techniques. The authors designed a tracking system to register log files containing the programming sequences created by (teams of) students in several secondary school classes. In this preliminary study, the collected data were used as inputs for machine learning algorithms, with two main objectives: 1—to identify different patterns in the students' problem-solving trajectories; 2—to accurately predict the final performance of the teams of students.

#### **2 Methods**

#### *2.1 Procedure and Participants*

Our experiment takes the existing research further by using educational robots. After upgrading the Lego Mindstorms EV3 programming blocks—using the Lego Mindstorms Developer kit (2019)—the authors were able to register several log files containing the programming sequences created by 197 Italian secondary school students (organized into 56 teams), while solving an introductory Robotics exercise. Using the data collected as input for machine learning algorithms, the authors tried to identify different patterns in the students' problem-solving trajectories and predict the final performance of their teams. The experiment was conducted from March 2018 to March 2019, and involved seven Italian lower/higher secondary schools (located in the Emilia Romagna and Marche regions). The authors used convenience sampling to involve students in the experiment. Data were collected from the robotics courses organized in the schools by the startup TALENT (a partner in the research project). Two of the schools decided to offer a curricular robotics class, five decided to offer a non-curricular robotics class. 18.78% of the participants had already used robotic kits at home or at school before the experiment.

#### *2.2 The Introductory Exercise*

One of the first steps in the "Introduction to Robotics" course, whose aim was to get students involved in the experiment, was an exercise with the Lego Mindstorms EV3 motors. They had to program the robot to cover a given distance (1 m), while trying to be as precise as possible. The educator suggested a specific block to turn on the robot's motors. Using the "Move Steering" block, students can select one of the four different options shown in Fig. 1 (On for Rotations, On for Degrees, On for Seconds, On). By modifying the numeric parameter highlighted in Fig. 1, the students' team can specify how many rotations the wheels have to complete. Following the same strategy, students can decide whether to define how many degrees or for how many seconds the motors should rotate. The first two numeric parameters are for steering the robot and the speed of the motor.

To solve this exercise, the teams had to design their solution in a maximum amount of time (15 min for upper secondary school classes, 20 min for lower secondary school classes), using no measuring tools (set squares, rulers, etc.) to check the distance covered by the robot on the floor. The measurements only applied to some of the robot's parameters (e.g., the wheel radius). The instructor gave a final evaluation for this exercise based on how accurate the team was. If the error was ≤4 cm, the educator considered the **challenge completed**; if the error was ≥4 cm the educator considered the **challenge not completed**.

#### *2.3 Data Preparation*

The tracking system collected 1113 programming sequences created by the teams of students to solve the robotics exercise described in the previous section. Several technical steps had to be performed to transform these sequences into matrices. After this transformation, the following nine indicators were calculated for each programming sequence (using a function in Python that parses the log file): **Motors** (how many motor blocks are in the sequence); **Others** (how many blocks in the sequence belong to categories other than Motors); **Added** (how many blocks have been added, compared to the previous sequence); **Deleted** (how many blocks have been deleted, compared to the previous sequence); **Changed** (how many blocks have been changed, compared to the previous sequence); **Equal** (how many blocks have stayed the same, compared to the previous sequence); **Delta Motors** (the degree of change inMotor block parameters, compared to the previous sequence, and calculated only for blocks in the "Changed" category); **Delta Others** (the degree of change in Other block parameters, compared to the previous sequence); **Trials** (how many times students activated the programming sequence on the robot).

#### **3 Results**

The authors adopted two machine learning approaches, with the aim of predicting the teams' results:

to calculate the percentage of sequences belonging to each cluster: these new features were then used to create a feature matrix as input for the four supervised algorithms mentioned previously.

A repeated tenfold cross validation was performed (Kim 2009) to evaluate the effectiveness of the different strategies at predicting the educational results, and four parameters were calculated (Huang and Ling 2005): Accuracy,Mean Precision,Mean Recall, Mean F1—Score. The best performance was obtained with the SVM algorithms combined with the features calculated by the k-means algorithm (the mixed approach). This combination led to the following predictions of the students' performance at resolving the exercise (challenge completed or not completed): Accuracy = 0.89 (SD = 0.002), Mean Precision 0.84 (SD = 0.007), Mean Recall = 0.84 (SD = 0.011), Mean F1 Score 0.83 (SD = 0.011).

Three problem-solving strategies emerged from the dataset collected. The "**Mathematical strategy**" groups performed a low number of total tests (compared to the other strategies), all of them with a rotation parameter equal to a fixed value (see Fig. 2 in Appendix, which shows the trend of the rotation parameter set by a group of students taken as an example for this approach). They probably used a mathematical formula to choose the robot's parameters, and never changed the value in the Motor block. The "**Incremental Tinkering approach**" groups performed a medium number of tests (compared to the other strategies); they probably used a heuristic approach to choose the robot's parameters, refined them repeatedly (see Fig. 2 in Appendix) and analyzed the feedback from the robot (for a definition of tinkering see Resnick and Rosenbaum (2013)). The "**Irregular Tinkering approach**" groups performed a high number of tests (compared to the other approaches), and their strategy is characterized by a broken line representing the number of seconds set in the Move Steering block (see Fig. 3 in Appendix), and a broken line representing the Delta Motors value calculated between two contiguous tests (which not only included changes to the number of seconds, but also modifications to the speed and steering parameters, (see Fig. 4 in Appendix). This last group probably also used a heuristic approach to choose the robot's parameters, but a certain number of large modifications could indicate difficulty understanding the feedback from the robot. These three behaviors were the most common in the dataset analyzed.

### **4 Conclusions**

This experiment presented a number of innovative features. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first experiment involving a fair number of students (197) to gather and look at programming sequences designed by students during ER activities, and analyze them using machine learning techniques. Good results were obtained predicting the students' performance, especially in terms of Accuracy (0.89). The three styles presented in the Results section are close to that of the "planner scientist" (similar to the "Mathematical strategy") and the "bricoleur scientist" (similar to the "Incremental Tinkering approach" and to the "Irregular Tinkering approach") proposed by Turkle and Papert (1992). The promising results of this preliminary study have encouraged the authors to involve new groups of students in the experiment, and also to collect data for different types of challenges, in order to validate the approach.

#### **Appendix**

See Figs. 2, 3 and 4.

**Fig. 2** Graph of rotations for two groups taken as examples of the "Incremental Tinkering" and "Mathematical" approaches

**Fig. 3** Graph of seconds for the group taken as an example of the "Irregular Tinkering" approach

**Fig. 4** Graph of Delta Motors for the group with an "Irregular Tinkering" approach

### **References**

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

# **Learning Platforms in the Context of the Digitization of Education: A Strong Methodological Innovation. The Experience of Latvia**

#### **Arta R ¯udolfa and Linda Daniela**

**Abstract** The modernization of the education system, the digitalization of the educational environment and learning management systems (LMS), where one of the solutions is learning platforms, are the most urgent directions today's pedagogical work is taking to reap the benefits of the digital environment. Education quality can be improved in different ways: by changing the content of learning, forms of learning, learning methods and teaching aids; promoting the use of learning platforms in schools; introducing programming and robotics; using learning management systems and other systems. Technologies and digital solutions are transforming the educational landscape in technology-enhanced learning environments. On one hand, there are many possible solutions that provide technology-enhanced learning; while on the other, there is a need to transform educational processes, to transform competence in teaching, to analyze learning outcomes so that technology-enhanced environments can support knowledge construction. The authors of this paper analyze the results of research on learning platforms, in which several research methods were used: systematic literature analyses; development of learning platform evaluation tools; analyses of learning platforms; and surveys on teachers' attitudes to learning platforms. Altogether 705 teachers expressed their opinion on using learning platforms as a tool for enhancing knowledge construction, providing feedback and analyzing students' learning results. In this paper, the authors will discuss the results of analyses on nine learning platforms developed in Latvia, conducted using an evaluation tool with 22 criteria and 43 sub-criteria.

**Keywords** Learning platforms · Digital learning tool · Evaluation tool · Evaluation criteria · Technology enhanced learning · Knowledge construction

© The Author(s) 2021

A. R ¯udolfa (B) · L. Daniela Scientific Institute of Pedagogy, University of Latvia, Imantas 7th, 1, Riga, Latvia e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
L. Daniela e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
D. Scaradozzi et al. (eds.), *Makers at School, Educational Robotics and Innovative Learning Environments*, Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems 240, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77040-2\_28

#### **1 Terminology in the Field of Digital Learning**

Digital solutions provide an opportunity for learning outside the specific boundaries of space. At the same time, pedagogical competences need to be developed so that digital solutions can be used in a targeted way to promote the acquisition of specific knowledge, skills and competences. One of the solutions for digital environments is the online learning opportunities that have entered the educational landscape thanks to the digital revolution. Digital solutions have advanced since 1971, with the mass production of the microprocessor by Intel [1], and continued with the definition of the World Wide Web in the 1980s and the first written web browser (WWW) in [2]—the result of work by Berners-Lee and Cailliau [2]—and its launch for public use in 1993. Since then, various online solutions have been developed which in turn led to the online learning solutions known to the world by different terms: *learning management systems (LMS), learning platforms (LP), massive open online courses (MOOC), online learning, digital education tools,* etc*.* In 1924, Sidney Pressey offered to test a machine that resembled a typewriter. It could be used to train memory processes and answer test questions and predict whether a specific answer would be chosen [3]. LMS are systems designed to capture student information digitally, create learning content for students and analyze student activity, and student learning outcomes [4]. They are excellent tools for educators, and their main difference from learning platforms (LP) is that the curriculum is created by the educators themselves. This approach has both positive outcomes, as educators are free to offer different learning solutions, as well as negative ones, since the learning offering depends on the individual educator's skill at designing the materials. Massive open online courses (MOOC) on the other hand, are courses in which a key emphasis is that the content participants have access to and learn is available online. A learning platform (LP) is a solution that is somewhere between an LMS and a MOOC. Unlike LMSs, where content is created by the educators themselves and available to students, the content of LPs is developed by the platform developers and the offer includes access to it [5, 6]. MOOCs, on the other hand, offer ready-made content but do not provide the management facility that is available for both LMSs and LPs. However, these boundaries become less distinct and unambiguous as the technological solutions continue to evolve. The authors of this study will use the term "learning platforms" as it is not yet synonymous with other terms used.

#### **2 Teaching Conditions in Digital Learning Environments**

The use of different digital learning platforms in the pedagogical process is also an increasingly urgent necessity. This is because students should not only acquire knowledge but should also become active participants in the learning process, and creators of new innovations, technologies, and technological solutions. One important factor that transforms the teaching environment is students' ability and willingness to self-manage their learning. This is essential in situations where students can themselves use a variety of online materials to organize their learning. The digitization of the learning process means students will increasingly take responsibility for their own learning, thus becoming responsible constructors of their knowledge, with the ability to function independently in the future, according to the demands of the employment market. The scientific databases on learning platforms reveal the following different formulations for these systems*: learning platforms; online learning; learning management systems; interactive learning,* etc*.* In many respects, this is an indication that similar online digital solutions are being discussed. However, we can conclude that digital forms of learning can be considered digital learning tools and that, in order to be defined as an online learning platform, they must meet the basic criteria of providing:

Learning platforms are one way for students to benefit from online digital solutions. Learning platforms are a digital learning tool that provides access to information across time and space. Students effectively have access to training platforms anytime, anywhere [7]. Only 9 (out of 39) of the learning platforms analyzed and assessed in this study meet the key criteria for learning platforms (immediate feedback, self-directed learning, a degree of interactivity, HTML—online access, etc.) and were evaluated and tested in depth. It is important to keep in mind the definition for learning platforms that was developed during this study, based on the main criteria for learning platforms in general. This will avoid any further confusion concerning what this study is about and what type of digital learning platform it refers to.

*The learning platform is a digital, interactive online learning tool that incorporates learning content theory, exercises, tests, provides instant feedback and keeps track of a student's learning progress. Learning platforms should be easily accessible and easy to use for students, helping them to learn the content of a self-directed learning process and organizing teaching activities for teachers* (Daniela & Rudolfa, 2019).

#### **3 Methodology**