Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Double Robotics Bring Learners Together


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

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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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