EduRob - Developing Future Educators' Digital Competence Through Introducing Robotics into Curriculum

Nowadays, Ukrainian teachers have limited access to novel technologies in particular to educational robotics. Recognizing that the cultivation of robotics, an embodiment of computational thinking, is optimally achieved through the utilization of educational robots at the early stages of education, our partnership has embarked on an initiative to empower university staff, pre-and in-service teachers with missing skills and update teacher training curricula and instructional practices.The primary objective of the EduRob project is to bridge the educational robotics gap between the EU and UA education seekers, particularly the younger Ukrainian generation, leveraging the support of the Erasmus+ program. The initiative involves collaboration between teachers from six remote HEIs in Ukraine and their four EU partners. The project's core tasks encompass introducing robotics competence into the teacher training curricula and promoting the use of educational robots for learning purposes in the UA university hometowns.The project tasks range from procuring equipment, building capacity, launching courses for students, and ultimately conducting training sessions for in-service teachers, cultivating their potential. To facilitate this progression, we initiate a project idea to incorporate robotics competence into the teacher training curricula across all educational levels: preschool, primary, secondary pre-service teachers and working professionals.Throughout the project, EU partners will share their expertise to assist Ukrainian partners in enhancing their technical, digital, and learning capacities through study trips, training courses, and MOOCs tailored for 234 representatives of the academic staff, who will consequently teach about 450 students and share experience with 300 in-service teachers annually.We also believe that access to modern educational robots and robotics, to a certain extent, will improve the mental health and well-being of the children of Ukraine.