Certification for teachers and educators on the educational robot Thymio
CTT – Certified Thymio teacher
Certification for educators and teachers on the educational robot Thymio
Mobsya, the Swiss association that created the Thymio robot, and Stripes coop sociale, the official training organization in Italy for the Thymio robot, have put together a certification for teachers, educators and third sector operators who want to use the Thymio educational robot professionally in the contexts in which they work.
Thymio was created, industrialized and commercialized by Mobsya, a non-profit association founded in 2010 by MOBOTS (Mobile Robotics Group) and EPFL (Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne). The robot was created from an open source perspective and has become much more than just an educational robot used in many schools today.
With this certification for teachers and educators who intend to include it in their teaching-educational program, it is possible to learn and attest their knowledge of the robot by obtaining the CTT – Certified Thymio Teacher issued by Mobsya and Stripes.
The “CTT – Certified Thymio Teacher” certification is issued upon passing an exam that can be done completely online.
The exam is divided into 4 sections with subsections structured as follows:
Section 1: INTRODUCTION TO EDUCATIONAL ROBOTICS.
– Historical background and basics of computer science and educational robotics
– The robot in the classroom: pedagogical aspects, collaboration, inclusion and teaching with robots
Section 2: THE EDUCATIONAL ROBOT THYMIO
– Basic behaviors
– Characteristics
– What might not work
Section 3: HOW TO PROGRAM THYMIO
– Event-driven programming: Basic VPL
– Event-driven programming: Advanced VPL
– Scratch for Thymio
– Use of Thymio simulator for distance learning
Section 4: POTENTIAL EDUCATIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS WITH THE THYMIO ROBOT
Sections 1 through 3 include a closed-ended test for each subsection for a total of 80 questions.
Each correct answer is worth 1 point
The maximum score for the closed-ended test for the first 3 sections is 80 points.
Section 4 involves the writing of a final paper that will be read by Stripes Digitus Lab trainers and scored from 1 to 20 points.
The maximum score achievable for the paper is 20 points.
The importance of the paper is precisely that it requires candidates to look for potential developments in the use of the robot in education and teaching.
Certification is achieved with a minimum total score (closed-ended test + paper) of 85 points out of 100.
The certification lasts two years and can be renewed through refresher courses or you can keep the certification active by doing the following activities:
- Attending the Thymio MOOC (currently available in French and soon in Italian)
- Be able to do a Thymio diagnostic: be able to diagnose if your robot needs to be repaired or not and repair basic problems as described in our Thymio repair guide (currently available in French and soon also in Italian).
- Participate and/or attend 3 webinars per year (in Italian or English)
- Be able to show people not familiar with Thymio all the programming interfaces and be able to direct people to the Mobsya website.
- Create 2 activities per year to be submitted to Roteco platform