STEM, Robotics, Mobile Apps in Early Childhood and Primary Education

This book brings together a collection of work from around the world in order to consider effective STEM, robotics, mobile apps education from a range of perspectives. It presents valuable perspectives—both practical and theoretical—that enrich the current STEM, robotics, mobile apps education agenda. As such, the book makes a substantial contribution to the literature and outlines the key challenges in research, policy, and practice for STEM education, from early childhood through to the first school age education.

The audience for the book includes college students, teachers of young children, college and university faculty, and professionals from fields other than education who are unified by their commitment to the care and education of young children.

Stamatios Papadakis has been a postdoctoral researcher in Educational Technology, with emphasis on mobile learning, at the Department of Preschool Education at the University of Crete, Greece, since 2016. He graduated from the Department of Informatics, Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece. In 2006, he completed a master’s degree (M.Ed.) in Pre-school Education and Educational Design at the University of Aegean, Rhodes, Greece, at the School of Humanities, Department of Pre-school Education. In 2016, he completed a Ph.D. at the University of Crete, Department of Education in Rethymnon, Greece. He worked as an adjunct lecturer in Education teaching Informatics (2017-2018) at the Department of Preschool Education, School of Education, University of Crete, Greece, and Didactics in Programming (2017-2018) at the Department of Computer Sciences, School of Sciences and Engineering at the University of Crete, Greece. His scientific and research interests includethe study of mobile learning, especially on the use of smart mobile devices and their accompanying mobile apps in the use of preschool and primary education, focusing on the development of computational thinking and students’ understanding of numbers. Furthermore, his research interests also include ICT in education, novice programming environments, and teaching of programming in primary and secondary education (novice programmers).

Michail Kalogiannakis is an associate professor at the Department of Preschool Education in the University of Crete, Greece, and associate tutor at the School of Humanities at the Hellenic Open University. He graduated from the Physics Department of the University of Crete, continued his postgraduate studies at the University Paris 7-Denis Diderot (D.E.A. in Didactic of Physics), University Paris 5-René Descartes-Sorbonne (D.E.A. in Science Education), and received his Ph.D. degree at the University Paris 5-René Descartes-Sorbonne (Ph.D. in Science Education). His research interests include science education in early childhood, mobile learning, science teaching and learning, e-learning, and the use of ICT in science education. He has published over 120 articles in international conferences and journals and has served on the program committees of numerous international conferences. He has published in journals such as Computers & Education, Education and Information Technologies, and Early Childhood Education Journal.