Breaking News
December 2015
Robots turn classrooms into international forums
Double Robotics Bring Learners Together
Another year further into the 21st century. . . and we all start to wonder:
What next?
The first 15 years of the new millennium astonished all of
us almost daily with previously undreamed of technology, developments and
devices. Our world changed in ways most of us couldn’t imagine.
We moved from calling to texting on our smart phones.
Emailing made way for instant messaging. We shot selfies to post our pictures online
and snapped our own vacation fun to send to our friends. We produced personal videos
by hundreds of thousands to put on YouTube and go viral. We met with co-workers
across the country using programs like Go to Meetings. We attended family
functions on Facetime and Skype.
Now, robots can connect classrooms across the country
and around the world
What’s next? What type of technology could possibly add
another dimension to human communication? Think: Double Robotics. It’s here!
With Double, an online portal connects classrooms across
the country and around the world. Through Double Robotics, students will practice Spanish, Chinese or any other language by talking to people who speak it. They’ll
find out about climates first-hand from geography classes in countries they’re
studying. They’ll understand cultures they could work in some day.
K-12 and college students will routinely collaborate on
projects with peers from other places – anywhere in the world. Important issues
will be discussed with real-time classrooms from Alaska, Arizona or Alabama to Asia,
Africa, or South America. U.S. college students will learn how much a Euro or
Lira buys from students abroad before planning their semester in Europe.
Lessons in languages, history,
literature, math, music and more will all be shared among students in
classrooms around the globe.
Once their classrooms are connected through Double Robotics,
educators at participating schools are provided with a menu of ideas on how to
collaborate with classrooms far and wide.
In real time, students and faculty will easily increase
learning and understanding – rather than solely relying on books for facts. Engagement
in ideas among students who live elsewhere and teachers from other countries will
become common in the next decade.
From Jenison, Holland or Grand
Rapids, teachers and students will team up with
their peers in other places as far away as India, Australia or
Indonesia.
“It’ll be amazing,” says Carlos Valladares, owner-manager
of Aim Up (Hudsonville, MI). Aim Up is the local company that carries and
installs the equipment and trains educators how to use it. “Our hope is that
the schools will start off with our suggestions and then run with it, finding
new and exciting ways to deploy the technology to enhance teaching and learning,”
he explains.
Double Robotics opens diverse classrooms to each other
Telepresence robots provide educators
with a revolutionary new level of interaction with remote classrooms. Students
and teachers are free to roam around and conduct classes as usual or can make contact
directly with each other. All
they need to do is place an iPad tablet in a mobile robotic base and control it
with a remote iOS device or computer.
Voila! A whole classroom in Kansas can take part in a
Spanish lesson in Honduras, partner on a project in world history with students
in France or Germany, or make live presentations to kids their age in Russia or
China. U.S. students in small classrooms in rural areas of all 50 states will
be able to sit in on courses like computer engineering or Arabic that can only
be offered in bigger American school districts. To find out more about Double
Robotics in your classrooms, see www.aim-up.com or contact Carlos Valladares at service@aim-up.com
Article written for Aim Up by
Susan K Maciak, For permission to
reprint or quote from this
article: Contact service@aim-up.com
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