The intentions of the designers of digital educational tools in early childhood education

Abstract

The popularity of programmable robots in early childhood education is growing. Such robots are discussed in the literature from the points of view of teachers, parents and children. We add the role of robot designers to this list. Focusing on designers and specifically their intentions is beneficial in two settings: in teacher training and whenever using the robots in playing activities in ECE. We present a qualitative study on robot designer intentions, conducted by group interviews with designers of two common but significantly different programmable robots, the Kubo robot and the Rugged robot. Using Activity Theory as the underlying framework for the thematic analysis of the interviews, our data reveal a large overlap of the intentions of both groups. They express the common goal of preparing children for the future although through slightly different competencies: enhancing computational thinking and 21st century skills, respectively. Both groups highlight the relevance of subjects outside computer science, specifically beyond coding. Our data also show a design process difference the Rugged robot was developed with a teacher-oriented approach whereas the Kubo robot with an object-oriented approach.