Why is Robotic Literacy Necessary for Education?

Robotics is one of the most necessary aspects of education nowadays, because children will interact with or encounter robots their entire lives. Increasing robotic literacy is therefore crucial in the early stages of education.

Robots are everywhere! When it comes to the industrial related functions, they perform jobs like welding, transportation, assembly, painting, and even destruction. In the world of medicine robots help to perform complicated surgical procedures. In farming they can even milk cows! This means that we cannot escape the fact that children need to learn about robots, the earlier the better, because in the future they’ll play an even larger role in society. 

One of the most important things about learning robotics is that it’s fun! The best way for children to learn is through play. Robotics gives them the opportunity to learn building, programming, and other skills all while having an air of enjoyment around it. And it turns out that one of the best ways to get children interested in the STEM subjects, is with robots. 

Robots allow the implementation of problem-based learning. This learning model presents students with a problem which they then need to solve with little to no instruction from teachers. This helps to inspire creativity, critical thinking, as well as cooperation. As an example, an instructor could present students with a robot and ask them to get it to complete a certain task (e.g. navigate a maze, pick something up, etc.). Provided they’ve already learned the basics of coding, this will seem like a welcome break from learning. What they won’t realize,or care about, is that they’re learning and practicing at the same time that they’re playing with the robot. Robots help to bring the play back into learning. This is probably the most important argument for robotic literacy. 

Another good thing about learning with robots is that it improves programming skills. The future is a digital one, and learning coding or programming will be one of the key skills that future innovators and workers will need. Even a child of 4 years of age can learn block programming and eventually build up to the more complicated programming languages like Python and JavaScript. Children can learn via interactive play with different robots and robotic kits. Robots can also demonstrate practical results from science and math classes. 

Whether it be from the perspective of student centered learning or from the point of view of preparing children for work in a digital world, robotics cannot be ignored. They capture the imagination of young and old by creating a sense of fun through learning. From kindergarten to highschool, robots are proving to be some of the most valuable educational tools ever created.