 | Dr.Glenn Fortmayer is Superintendent of USD 247 Southeast. He has been a superintendent for four years and administrator for 15 of 23 years in education. He is working with Southeast on initiatives including: expanding student learning opportunities, technology integration, and increasing instruction that authentically engages students every class period of every day with an emphasis on project based learning. For more information call 620-457-8350.
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Education Issues
2013-04-29 15:32:16
Robotics in education-why the push?
A-Technology in schools is a challenge. Almost before a tool is taught, it’s replaced by an advanced technology. Some adults are called “technophobes” (people that fear and resist technology) by others called “techies” (people that promote and use technology extensively). Schools were a battleground between the two. Even teachers chose sides and taught accordingly. Today, the techies have won. Our technology based world has forced schools to prepare students for work and life. Computers replaced worksheets, laptops replaced desktop computers, IPADs are transforming the portable computer era. Robots are the coming technology now.
Robots are actually in schools now. USD 247 Southeast has robots in classrooms K-12 including a pair of advanced programmable android robots named “NOA,” pronounced “now.” Robotics is necessary because it is both an engaging medium for teaching Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) skills and concepts; plus it’s a huge vocational field that’s starved for workers. Our nation is demanding students to be college or career ready upon graduation. Employers and government officials are pushing for STEM skilled graduates for every career, whether for a college graduate, a professional certified trade position with one or two years school/training, or a position right out of high school. STEM skilled workers make between 12% at advanced degree level and 30% more for non-college workers than non-stem skilled workers.
Currently, the U.S. only supplies 20% of the robotics programmers needed (second highest paying field for college graduates on average). There is also a huge shortage of workers to do the construction and maintenance of robots. Robots are no longer just the mechanical welder or stacker on the factory assembly line. They run the cameras in TV studios and function as intelligent medical wheel chairs and hospital beds. They are independently operating vehicles that do not need remote control. There are giant load bearing working robots and miniature microscopic robots that repair the human body from within. In the next few years robots will emerge as support and combat soldiers and aircraft in the military; right off the pages of science fiction books.
Schools are teaching students through robotics to have the skills to work with future technology. Robotics lessons teach necessary concepts in math and sciences. They teach students how to communicate and interact with each other while completing projects. Robotics lessons prepare students for the career skills they need to work in the higher paying positions they will seek after graduation. USD 247 Southeast students work on basic robotics and STEM programs beginning with LEGO robots in Kindergarten, progress through PITSCO robots and STEM Mission labs through Junior High, and then STEM classes, STEM Vocational Programs, and the NOA Android Robot programming classes 7-12 as part of an ever expanding STEM focused curriculum. Schools are beginning to see the need to transform the old erector set robotics taught in enrichment classes or in clubs into the foundations of a much richer and more complex curriculum that is essential to student learning in the 21st Century.
Interested students, parents, and patrons should contact their local districts for more information.
