Robo-teacher invades classroom

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 12 May 2009 at 09:03

Students at a Japanese primary school have received their first lesson from their new, robot teacher.

The robot taught and fielded simple questions from students for an hour.

Professor Hiroshi Kobayashi of Tokyo University of Science, who built the robot says it's not meant to replace human teachers, just to highlight the joys of technology.

"We are not looking at making something that will take over from teachers, but rather our main reason for building this robot is to use new technology to teach children about technology," says Kobayashi.

However, he admits that the robot, dubbed Saya, may be able to help in schools where there is a shortage of teachers: "In the countryside and in some small schools, there are children who do not have the opportunity to come into contact with new technology and also there are few teachers out there that can teach these lessons," adds Kobayashi.

"So we hope to be able to develop this robot so it can be remotely controlled to teach these classes."

The children's human teacher, however, was not as impressed with the robot as its creator.

"On the one hand I am impressed that they've got robots to go this far, but on the other hand they still have a long way to research before they create a truly robotic teacher," says Akito Fukuda, the school's science teacher.

Japan, home to almost half of the world's 800,000 industrial robots, expects the industry to expand to $10 billion in the future including models that can care for its fast-growing elderly population.

To find out the state of current robotic research and where it's leading us, read our feature.