Educational Robotics Theories and Practice taric, 2004; Miller, Nourbakhsh, & Sigwart, 2008; Papanikolaous & Frangou, 2009). Currently, there are three trends in the use of robotics in education: robotics as learning objective, robotics as learning aids, and robotics as learning tool. The robotics as learning objective in education includes science, engineering, and computer science courses, in high school (AP levels) and post-secondary level education. The focus of the courses is to learn the knowledge and skills necessary for pursuing careers in the fields of science, computer science, engineering, Artificial Intelligence, and robotics (Miller, et al., 2008). With robotics as learning aids approach, the focus is in using robots as as- sistive learning devices. For example, in Korea, Japan, and China, there are robotic teaching aids developed to assist teachers in the classroom (Chang, Lee, Chao, Wang, & Chen, 2010; Chen & Chang, 2008; Chen, Yeh, Tseng, Wu, & Chung, 2009; Demetriou, 2010; J.-H. Han & Kim, 2010; Li, et al., 2009). Also, robotics has been used to help students with autism spectrum disorders as an effective behavior intervention tool (Feil-Seifer & Mataric, 2008a, 2008b; Krane, 2010; Liu, Conn, Sarkar, & Stone, 2008; Miller, et al., 2008; Roth, 2009). The third approach, robotics as a learning tool, which is the focus of this chapter, uses ro- botics to enhance learning in classrooms. As the story of the 4 th graders illustrates, robotics can grab children's imagination (Li, et al., 2009) and motivate them to engage in further exploration and learning (Miller, et al., 2008). This chapter will introduce general information about educational robotics and its background, the learning experience that educational robotics can provide, and the pedagogical theories that support educational robotics learning, as well as discuss ways of creating effective learning environment for educational robotics. EDUCATIONAL ROBOTICS Educational robotics is the term widely used to describe the use of robotics as a learning tool. At the beginning of educational robotics as an emerg- ing field in education, about a decade ago, two goals were introduced as learning objectives. One goal is to use robots to make children interested in learning about the world of technology by incorporating classes and activities that focus on teaching children about robots (Hendler, 2000). Another aim is the creation of new projects using robots as learning tools in order to engage children in activities while teaching concepts not easily taught with traditional approaches. Unlike the sophisticated robotics technology used in robot- ics labs, lower-cost educational robotics kits with less sophisticated sensors and controllers have made the technology available for use in class- room settings. Today's educational robotics kits provide users with a graphic-based programming environment, readily accessible for beginners, as well as making it possible for users to program complex robotic behaviors. A typical educational robotics kit comes with a programmable brick or controller, which func- tions as a robot's brain, different types of sensors including touch sensor, light sensor, distance (ultrasonic) sensor, rotation sensor, motors, wheels and other parts needed to build a robot. There are several educational robotics kits available in the market world-wide, ranging in price from a couple of hundred to about a thousand dollars. Probably the most popular kit is the Mindstorms kit created by LEGO (http://mindstorms.lego. com/). It was used by 14,725 FIRST LEGO League robotics teams from around the world in the 2009 competition (FIRST LEGO League, 2011). This is just a small portion of population using Mind- storms NXT. Many RoboCupJunior teams also use it in the US and around the world. The Mind- storms kit mainly uses LEGO Technic parts, which are different from original LEGO bricks that many children are familiar with. There are several 3