Co-constructing narratives through educational robotics in preschool small working groups

Abstract

The research involved three Italian preschools, where children were considered as proper “researchers” about a new Programming Digital Storytelling (i-Code). Educational robotics was not considered as an interesting issue by itself, but it was managed as a tool that could support the construction of collective reasonings in small group discussions. The preschool children were involved into two research steps: (1) testing and evaluating the prototype of i- Code; (2) exploring and using the first complete version of the kit. The initial results show that: (a) children competently construct collective reasoning also concerning the world of robotics and the narrative co-construction can be enriched by i-Code; (b) the narrative coconstruction is much more effective when teachers play a modulation role inside the small groups.