How does telenoid affect the communication between children in classroom setting?

Abstract

It needs to be investigated how humanoid robots may affect people in the real world when they are employed to express the presence, a feel of being there, in tele-communication. We brought Telenoid, a tele-operated humanoid robot, into a classroom at an elementary school to see how schoolchildren respond to it. Our study is exploratory and we focused on the social aspects that might facilitate communication between schoolchildren. We found that Telenoid affected the way children work as group. They participated in the group work more positively, became more spontaneous, and differentiated their roles. We observed that Telenoid's limited capability led them to change their attitudes so that they could work together. The result suggests that the limited functionality may facilitate cooperation among participants in classroom setting.