May 2024

Educational Programming and Robotics, immersed in the paradigm of creative learning and from practice (learning by doing), brings together a lot of proposals, methodologies and content that cannot be abandoned in current curricular projects.

Programming allows us to approach any project that uses the digital world from a new point of view: creative, experimental, cooperative, free and critical.

Robotics (the connection to the physical world of our computer projects) allows us to interact directly with the immediate environment, discover it, experiment, create artifacts, find real proposals and solutions... get excited!

This creative point of view, both in the virtual and in the physical world, is the key to meaningful and contextual learning, and empowers us to be active agents in our communities and address the challenges we have as society.

And that is why the STEAM sphere (with globalized learning that encourages research, dialogue and critical thinking) and the Maker culture (being curious, imaginative, committed, persistent, optimistic, taking risks, seeking resources and sharing) are ideal frameworks for the Projects of our Learning Experiences.

For the seventh year, from 7 to 14 May we will meet in Faberllull Olot a passionate group of teachers, designers and creators of educational tools from around the world to promote these STEAM and Maker projects based on creative learning experiences in educational programming and robotics. Many of us already share projects during the year, from distant locations, enjoying the technologies that allow us to work remotely and asynchronously, but the personal and intensive meeting that Faberllull Olot offers us is an invaluable gift. There you will find the core of the Snap! And Microblocks teams (California, Massachusetts, Baden-Württemberg and Catalonia) and other collaborators.

Three subjects we will be working on at Faber will be:

1. Rethinking CS Pedagogy and Purpose (related to "CS for all")
2. Connecting Virtual and Physical worlds working in a better integration of the “maker” tools we already use (Snap4Arduino, TurtleStitch…)
3. Challenging CS Education in the age of AI

We will design, develop, study, debate ... and create! And we will share it in the framework of the Robolot 2024 where we will actively participate in the Programming and Robotics Innovation Conference on Saturday, May 11.