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The Combined Use of Lego Mindstorms NXT and App Inventor for Teaching Novice Programmers

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Educational Robotics in the Makers Era (Edurobotics 2016 2016)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 560))

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Abstract

Both in Greece and abroad, students in school and in introductory computer science courses perceive programming as a difficult task. Introductory programming courses are often disappointing both for students and for teachers. One of the major factors to which these difficulties in learning programming has been attributed is the traditional approach to teaching the fundamentals of programming, which is unable to provide students with an interesting and richly stimulating environment through which problems and concepts are the subject of investigation in a creative and enjoyable way. In contrast, several studies claim that teachings robotics is suitable to students regardless of age and background and is a way of encouraging learning. This paper presents an alternative use of robotic Lego Mindstorms constructions and the visual programming environment App Inventor for teaching programming with the goal of understanding basic programming structures.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Preschool Education, University of Crete, Crete, Greece

    Stamatios Papadakis

  2. 1st Vocational School of Agios Nikolaos, Crete, Greece

    Vasileios Orfanakis

Authors
  1. Stamatios Papadakis
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  2. Vasileios Orfanakis
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Correspondence to Stamatios Papadakis .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. European Lab for Educational Technology , Sparta, Greece

    Dimitris Alimisis

  2. Department of Information Engineering, Università degli Studi di Padova, Padua, Italy

    Michele Moro

  3. Department of Information Engineering, Università degli Studi di Padova , Padova, Italy

    Emanuele Menegatti

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Papadakis, S., Orfanakis, V. (2017). The Combined Use of Lego Mindstorms NXT and App Inventor for Teaching Novice Programmers. In: Alimisis, D., Moro, M., Menegatti, E. (eds) Educational Robotics in the Makers Era. Edurobotics 2016 2016. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 560. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55553-9_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55553-9_15

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-55553-9

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