Robot education peers in a situated primary school study: personalisation promotes child learning

The benefit of social robots to support child learning in an educational context over an extended period of time is evaluated. Specifically, the effect of personalisation and adaptation of robot social behaviour is assessed. Two autonomous robots were embedded within two matched classrooms of a primary school for a continuous two week period without experimenter supervision to act as learning companions for the children for familiar and novel subjects. Results suggest that while children in both personalised and non-personalised conditions learned, there was increased child learning of a novel subject exhibited when interacting with a robot that personalised its behaviours, with indications that this benefit extended to other class-based performance. Additional evidence was obtained suggesting that there is increased acceptance of the personalised robot peer over a non-personalised version. These results provide the first evidence in support of peer-robot behavioural personalisation having a positive influence on learning when embedded in a learning environment for an extended period of time

Hoe halen ouderen the next level? Overtuigende technologie voor een gezond leven

E-health kan ouderen helpen in beweging te komen en te blijven. Via deze technologie kunnen ouderen zelfstandig aan de slag. Onderzoek laat echter zien dat de gebruiker vaak al is uitgekeken op de technologie voordat het gewenste effect bereikt is. E-health vraagt daarom om een nieuwe aanpak die lijkt op die van games: afwisselend, uitdagend en sociaal. Maar wat betekent dat precies voor ouderen? En wat helpt hen naar the next level