After holding several inclusive workshops during the Code Week and Hour of Code, we saw the need for children with disabilities to indicate the ability to learn coding through cheerful activities with different educational robotics.

On the occasion of the STEM Discovery Week 2019, a pilot project of two associations of citizens of Mensa Serbia and ,, Evo ruka” (Here’s the hand) is being launched with the aim to introduce new concepts in teaching to children from special schools through discovery and game with robots, which would affect the quality of acquired knowledge and skills of students in special schools.

The goal of the project is to introduce students to robots and algorithmic ways of thinking, in an interesting way to acquire knowledge that would be accepted more easily and without resistance due to emotional reaction to robots. The ultimate goal is to prove that using robot coding can be learned in an inclusive environment without much difference to the approximate age of children.

Project description: In two special schools, there will be organised workshops with educational robots DOC, Lego Boost and Lego We Do 2.0. Students with developmental specifics will overcome certain problems or certain curricular content through the movement and construction of robots.

Our tasks in this project are:

• That students accept a robot as a little friend who needs their help to solve the problem
• To learn to command the arrow keys that are on the DOC robot
• To solve the transition tasks from point A to point B
• To solve tasks by identifying geometric bodies, numbers, letters, colors,
• That advanced students learn to control robotic block controls on a tablet
• That advanced students learn to build Lego robots and launch it
• To prove that robbers as a teaching tool can be used in special schools not only for learning coding but with many different activities and
• To detect pupils with special talents in technology and engineering among students of a special school.
• To train employees so that they can conduct such activities with or without robots

Implementers: members of Mensa Serbia who organizing activities for children: Tanja Olear Gojic – coordinator and project author, Mirjana Tišma, member, Luka Gojic- student volunteer and with the help of defectologists and parents of children at the workshop.

Implementation dynamics:

Elementary school “Radivoj Popović” in Zemun, every second Tuesday to the end of the school year from 16:30 to 17:30 starting from March 5, 2018. (Group of 10-15 students depending on school’s decision)
Elementary school “New Belgrade” in New Belgrade, monthly in April, May and June by arrangement – 3 workshops with different groups of students from 10-15 year old.

It will be presented as an example of good practice, in order to launch a more important project, or to provide robots for children with the participating schools.