Providing deep integration of distance students in traditional face-to-face classrooms doesn't require specialized learning environments, drastic adaptations of instructor pedagogy, or expensive investments in technology. This session demonstrates a low-cost telerobotics platform placing distance learners in the middle of traditional classrooms and in control of their own learning experience.
This session demonstrates a low-cost, portable robotics platform that puts distance learners side-by-side with their resident peers in face-to-face classrooms and in control of their own learning experience. Telepresence classrooms, with multiple monitors and cameras, audio systems and matrix controllers are expensive to implement and operate. With distance students on monitors at the front and back of the room and with their audio combined into ceiling-mounted speakers, the instructional choices available to faculty are limited and student interactions are often restricted to formal responses to class activities. Telerobots can be deployed into any classroom and students participate in all manner of teaching modalities.
At the end of this session, attendees will be able to contrast different telerobotics platforms, identify each of the pieces in a telerobotics implementation including equipment, training, and support requirements and assess the different pedagogical choices available in a mixed distance/resident classroom.
Participants will have a chance to connect to the demonstrated system and to simulate a distance student's learning experience during a sample small group activity.
Experiences from the courses supported at the University of Arizona College of Education will be shared including the affect on absenteeism and student retention.