On February 19, I had the chance to return — this time not only as a researcher, but also as someone who once belonged to the Équipe Formativa Territoriale of USR Veneto — to help organize a full day of training on educational robotics at the Competence Centre SMACT in Padua, in collaboration with the University of Padua.
It was rewarding to see the meeting come to life and to welcome so many teachers from schools of every level. The morning began with Prof. Emanuele Menegatti, who introduced the key concepts of educational robotics, before participants moved into parallel workshops tailored to primary, lower, and upper secondary schools.
Teachers experimented with activities ranging from tinkering with simple circuits (building a glowing monster, or a greeting card with LEDs) to programming with Lego kits, Pictoblox, and Microbit. The atmosphere was full of curiosity and enthusiasm, a clear sign of how much schools are ready to explore robotics not as a novelty, but as a way to make learning interdisciplinary, creative, and engaging.
I had closed the day by presenting, together with some friends and member of the Équipe, some good practices of using Artificial Intelligence in the classroom — showing how AI, too, can become a meaningful tool for learning when approached critically and creatively.
This experience reminded me once again how powerful it is to bring teachers together around hands-on exploration: not only to learn new tools, but to imagine new ways of teaching that put students’ creativity, curiosity, and problem-solving skills at the center.
