Taxonomy of Floor Robots for Working on Educational Robotics and Computational Thinking in Early Childhood Education from a STEM Perspective

Abstract

AbstractEducational robotics and computational thinking are increasingly present in the Early Childhood Education classroom. In many educational centers and plenty of Early Childhood Education classrooms, floor robots are beginning to be used as resources that promote the development amongst students of a variety of competences that go beyond computational thinking. Nevertheless, that implementation of robots inside the classroom is very often being performed without any planning, lacking in methodology and seeking no specific goal. An urgent need exists to establish some criteria or premises that can orient teachers in a first choice of the floor robots best suited to their students’ needs. This chapter undertakes the analysis of eight common floor robot models in the hope that it will allow us to establish a set of basic principles which can provide Early Childhood Education teachers with guidance for their choice and in turn serve as approaches worth considering in any intervention aimed at implementing educational robotics and computational thinking during this educational stage.KeywordsEducational roboticsTaxonomyFloor robotsEarly childhood education