[HN Gopher] Robots could take place of pupils who cannot attend ...
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Robots could take place of pupils who cannot attend school in
person
Author : vitabenes
Score : 14 points
Date : 2021-06-26 11:02 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bristolpost.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bristolpost.co.uk)
| deevolution wrote:
| The extreme lengths the state will go thru to make sure everyone
| is attending school... what's wrong with online/virtual learning?
| Imagine if you could select from the very best rather than being
| limited to your own school district.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| It has more to do with the way we measure academic success,
| politicians exercising their power, maintaining the status quo.
| Not much on the quality of education.
|
| I believe frontal lessons + tests to be a terrible way to learn
| for roughly half of the kids and they would definitely thrive
| with more self directed learning (think project based
| learning).
|
| There are other problems linked to not physical attending
| schools (eg. socialising with peers, having a routine based on
| locations and activities) but this robot doesn't solve that as
| well
| deevolution wrote:
| Also a robot is going to be far more expensive than something
| like a VR classroom. VR classrooms solves the socializing
| aspect. Also another benefit to a VR classroom would be
| potentially less bullying based on gender/race/weight if you
| can select whatever avatar you want
| musicale wrote:
| I think remote learning is great, and I've benefited greatly
| from MOOCs for example, as well as online course materials,
| textbooks, and videos. It's great for self-directed learning,
| and it can be very good if you can get personalized help and
| guidance from an instructor.
|
| However, Kindergartens, labs, and in-person campuses can be
| better for:
|
| - social interaction
|
| - learning from other students
|
| - personal attention from teachers
|
| - hands-on stuff: tools, toys, books, notebooks, art and craft
| supplies, lab equipment, etc.
|
| - engaging your non-visual senses
|
| - physical movement and exercise
| space_fountain wrote:
| Online school has been horrible for many children's educational
| outcomes this past year. Getting some of them to actually
| attend and pay attention has been impossible. Maybe in
| households with attentive available parents it would be fine,
| but as it is it's helped to expand the education gap across the
| US
| musicale wrote:
| > Getting some of them to actually attend and pay attention
| has been impossible.
|
| The solution then is obviously to lock students in a room
| that they can't escape!
|
| Might not help with the attention part though (based on my
| own observation and experience.)
|
| Kids are curious and natural learners - I think we have to
| ask ourselves: how can we nurture this instinct rather than
| killing it?
| space_fountain wrote:
| I mean school should absolutely be better, but 13 year olds
| aren't exactly known for making informed choices about
| their future and we have been trying the online school
| thing and the results don't look good. We need to be
| evidence based about this and not just base it on what
| feels right or we think would have helped us
| paulcole wrote:
| > what's wrong with online/virtual learning
|
| This is a good question and one I don't know the answer to.
| From the rest of your comment it seems like your answer might
| be "nothing."
|
| Is that accurate or do you see issues with online/virtual
| learning?
| cudgy wrote:
| What significant benefit is gained over using a small robot
| called a "video camera" in the classroom to film the lecture?
| lioeters wrote:
| Sounds like it has a speaker, microphone, and possibly motors
| for moving parts? Calling it "telepresence" is a bit of a
| stretch, though..
| psychomugs wrote:
| This is a textbook definition of telepresence.
|
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/telepresence
| runarb wrote:
| > What significant benefit is gained over using a small robot
| called a "video camera" in the classroom to film the lecture?
|
| The robot in the picture is a No Isolation AV1. It allows the
| pupil at to do a little more than a video camera. For example,
| to look around in the classroom and raise its hand by turning
| the robots head blue.
|
| More information on their website:
| https://www.noisolation.com/uk/av1/?
| cudgy wrote:
| I still do not see the benefit from this. Being able to look
| around the classroom has little benefit. Indicating that I
| have a question Can be done with a chat interface. This seems
| more like a Solution looking for a problem.
| runarb wrote:
| Thus robots are not meant as a replacement for virtual
| learning, but as a way for students to follow the normal
| education when they are temporarily away.
|
| For the last two years, I have been taking an MBA, and my
| school had thus robots. When students could not come to
| class, they could still attend by using a AV1. It is not so
| easy for the teachers to also have to do a virtual meeting
| simultaneously as teaching the regular class, so the
| alternative is often that the teachers just send out their
| slide deck to those that were not present, so the student
| can self-study. The robot also has batteries, so we took it
| with us to group work, lunches, and parties. Here is a
| picture of my group during the second covid surge,
| hammering away on our digital business model assignment:
| https://www.instagram.com/p/CCGS2lxhgcU/ .
| zulln wrote:
| Maybe serve as a physical reminder for your friends that
| you are still part of the class to make it easier when you
| then get back?
|
| I think I agree with this being over-hyped, but trying to
| look for reasons it might be a good idea.
| psychomugs wrote:
| Telepresence is a large subfield within human-computer
| interaction research; several studies have shown benefits of
| having this embodiment for both ends [1-3].
|
| Intuiting through it, how easy is it to tune out another flat
| planar video screen versus a tangible physical object moving
| around in your shared space?
|
| [1]
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S107158191...
|
| [2] https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2157689.2157699
|
| [3] https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2559636.2559654
| tdeck wrote:
| I'm skeptical. We used to have Beam telepresence robots in
| the office when I worked at Square. They were a novelty and
| people would try them soon after joining, but nobody used
| them. It was easier and more natural just to use Slack or
| video chat.
| psychomugs wrote:
| For now, sure, obviously it'll be more natural to use the
| mediums that are pervasive on commercially available
| devices that are backed by several industries-worth of
| engineers and developers, compared to some systems hacked
| together by handful of grad students in some lab somewhere
| or hardware startups in a very nascent stage. Hardware is
| hard, and these platforms are just beginning to explore the
| possible application spaces of which there is still a lot
| of research to be done. My personal view on many of these
| telepresence platforms is that they're basically roving
| tablets with limited embodied expressiveness and no
| manipulation capability, which are whole subfields of
| research in-and-of themselves, and that addressing these
| limitations will eke out more value of telepresence robots
| in the future. The point of research (ideally) shouldn't be
| an immediate VC-backable commercial application, but rather
| to explore possible futures viable 5-10+ years down the
| road.
| mrtweetyhack wrote:
| Or a frog
| cheaprentalyeti wrote:
| Is this gonna be something like the Electric Monk from the Dirk
| Gently books?
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