This book is released in times of uncertainty and anxiety, regarding all activities at home, school and work, resulting from effects of the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. Students experienced schools closing suddenly and suffered anxiety during lockdown periods, which affected motivation and learning progression. This mental disturbance still haunts them.
From the darkness, emerges this text, which answers many questions formulated during the pandemic and demonstrates the positive relationships that technology can cultivate when experts in education and engineering work together with a common objective (Yadav & Vyas, 2021).
The book reviews and analyses a tremendous educational experience with the Educational Robotics programme in Italy. This is promoted by Europole, with Stefano Cobello, heading up 4,000 agencies across the world to introduce technology in learning that uses technological advances with children and teenagers. It demonstrates how the proper use of technology promotes the development and improvement of abilities to communicate, write and discuss, in learners of all ages, at a time when many publications talk about the dramatic decrease of these capabilities – the effects produced by abuse of tablets and cell phones (Campbell, 2006; McCoy, 2013). La Scuola di Robotica in Genoa, connected with the Engineering Robotic Department of the University of Genos, is another agency leader in this field and it offers on-line courses for students, teachers and parents. It is the one who organises the Robotic competitions among schools all over Italy.
Personal and practical competencies and experiences are essential for people’s social and integral growth – language, dialogue, reflection, analysis and action, in a world of increasing intelligent machines working alongside us in all aspects of life.
Language, both verbal and non-verbal, forms the basis of socialisation and the transfer of values and beliefs (Bekir et al., 2018) and before the pandemic and consequent lockdowns, there was a consensus about the negative impact of screens on the communication competencies of all ages (McCoy, 2013).
The Italian teachers maintain that it “is vital to facilitate oracy (speaking and listening) now that students communicate more by technology” (Sage, 2017). The wonderful experience of Italian schools, using robotics to promote
Present generations have more access to technology. The profile of users relates not only to the devices employed and age ranges, but also the socioeconomic aspects. This aligns with a study of 64 university students at the University of Chile, regarding the use of cell phones for academic purposes, that shows an inverse relationship of financial incomes and the complex use of devices (Romero, 2022).
Presently, the pandemic has forced the widespread use of technology in education. Therefore, the effective integration of individual competencies, the use of technological devices and contributions to global knowledge are all fundamental. The book encourages responses to this new model of learning that is applied to different levels in education.
Juan Romero University of Chile Medical School
References
Bekir, H., Bayraktar, V., & Aydin, R. (2018). Language development and support in children. In Ü. Denİz, T. Çetin, N. Obralic, V. Bayraktar, & Y. Yildirim (Eds.), Currents trends in pre-school education – 2. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.
Campbell, S. (2006). Perceptions of mobile phone in college classrooms: Ringing, cheating and classroom policies. Communication Education, 55(3), 280–294.
McCoy, B. (2013). Digital distractions in the classroom: Student classroom use of digital devices for non class related purposes. College of Journalism & Mass Communications: Faculty Publications, 71. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/journalismfacpub/71
Romero, J. (2022). How the world is changing education. Brill.
Sage, R. (2017). The educational context. In R. Sage (Ed.), Paradoxes in education: Learning in a plural society (pp. 1–9). Sense Publishers.
Yadav, S., & Vyas, C. (2021). Impact of digital technology on preschoolers: A review. International Journal of Scientific Research in Science, 8(2), 223–227.