For the last two decades, the growth of educational robots has been increasing rapidly in several sectors. The chapter aims to provide a critical assessment of artificial intelligence's (AI) impact and opportunities in early childhood education. The study used a computational kit (robotic kit) for young children from age 3-8 years old to review existing literature in robotics education. This research investigated (1) the impact of artificial intelligent devices and children, (2) computational thinking for early childhood education, (3) programming for young children using tangible blocks, (4) educational robotic in early childhood classroom learning and special education humanoid robots, and (5) existing curriculum framework for primary school children. The research was carried out by sorting through the literature published in international journals and proceedings between 2003 and 2021 (June). This chapter proposes learning of robotics at a young age as a recommendation for future research. It improves various real-life skills and computational thinking, especially at a young age.
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Over the years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has revolutionized the world in the daily lifestyle of the 21st century. Technology has created excellent tools and resources to gather all the information in hands within seconds. It is hard to imagine a life without technology and it has become a part of every day’s life. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the growing technologies that create a revolution globally by making intelligent machines. It is ubiquitous in various domains such as astronomy, healthcare, gaming, finance, social media, travel and transport, robotics, agriculture, education etc. AI plays an essential role in education, with a direct impact from early childhood and technology made education more accessible to everyone than ever. Nowadays, children use smartphone’s, tablets, computers, and other internet-based devices at a young age (Prentzas,2013). Children are showing much eagerness to connect with intelligent conversational AI voice-based applications like Siri, Google Assistant, and Google Alexa (Druga et.al.,2017). Through the National Educational Policy (NEP) last year, the Indian government planned to incorporate Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and other related technologies into the curriculum. Schools are using several AI-based technological devices to teach children, and the purpose of robots in the classroom is to help children overcome their educational barriers. The main reason for integrating AI with the current school curriculum is that the future generation could become familiar with the technology (Ali et.al.,2019).
The early childhood STEM represents (Science, Technology, Education, and Mathematics) “STEAM” represents STEM plus arts (Science, Technology, Education, Arts, and Mathematics) educational approach gives a strong impetus and remarkable growth in learning speed. Most of the primary schools consider only science and mathematics concepts, but there is less emphasis on technology, computer science, problem solving and robotics. Art has recently been added and the integration of the arts encourages learning with more relevance to real life and unleashes children's creativity in early childhood education. It includes humanities, drama, dance, visual arts, design, music and new media. Early STEAM supports the children's overall academic growth, develops early critical and creative thinking skills, and encourages later interest in STEAM studies and careers. STEAM education develops skills in the students to become innovators and entrepreneurs of the future (Dejarnette,2018;Shatunova et.al.,2019). In a study by Microsoft, 4 in 5 STEM students (78%) said they chose to study STEM in high school or earlier, and one in five (21%) chose to go to middle school or earlier. But only 1 in 5 STEM students think that their K12 training has prepared them very well for their STEM student courses. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts 5 percent growth in non-STEM occupations between 2018 and 2028, while the number of STEM-related jobs will grow nearly 9 percent and will increase by 10.6 million jobs.
Computational thinking (CT) is a creative way of thinking and problem-solving process that enables children to identify problems and generate step-by-step solutions to this problem (García-Valcárcel-Muñoz-Repiso, &Caballero-González,2019). CT is primarily used to develop computer applications, but it can also be used to support problem solving in all disciplines, including math, science, and the humanities. For example, CT can be applied in mathematics, such as analyzing the different parts of a formula, plotting data on a chart, understanding different symbols, requires a different set of calculations and follows the formula rule. Through STEAM education, 3-5 years old children can effectively develop computational skills. When children develop numeracy skills, they can articulate a problem and think logically to break down the issues ahead and predict what may happen in the future. Additionally, a new STEM-tastic Adventures app was developed to help young children practice and learn Computational thinking (CT) skills in the context of the STEM connections “City Walk” and “Better Building” games. The “City Walk''invites children to create a sequence of navigation instructions for their robot friend to deliver gifts around town. “Better Building” game application allows children to closely observe and sort objects by color, shape, size, and label groups to help the robot friend more efficiently build structure.