Hi, my name is Kimberly Blessing. I'm a computer scientist, Web developer, standards evangelist, feminist, and geek. This is where I write about life, the Web, technology, women's issues, and whatever else comes to mind.
Student Reaction to a Computer Science Course Using Robots
Over at the Institute for Personal Robots in Education Blog Natasha Eilbert summarizes the feedback from the intro CS class taught with robots at Bryn Mawr and Georgia Tech:
The class consisted, in large part, of non-science students, many choosing to take the class incidentally. However, students felt that, through the course, they learned important, basic computer science concepts, such as breaking down a problem and planning out a solution. They got the impression that computer science involves logical thinking, problem-solving, and patience, and they left feeling that computer science was fun (how great!). Most students enjoyed using the interactive, hands-on Scribbler robots, and a number of them even became attached to the life-like creatures. The students did get frustrated with the robots at times, especially over the imprecision of the robots and over hardware issues that were out of the students’ control; at the same time, they learned that it is reasonable that, like humans, robots are not completely perfect. … Happily, most of the students left the class with the feeling that computer programming was important and in some way relevant to their future life, whether in their field of study or in the every day world.
Awesome!
