Project IDEAL

Inclusive Design for Engaging All Learners (IDEAL)

The project IDEAL investigates the use of an embodied, humanoid robot as a cultural broker that mediates young children’s collaboration. As children start schooling, they come with a unique way of thinking and doing that are embedded implicitly and explicitly in their home cultures. Being able to work with others is an essential skill for the children to adjust to the new environment (e.g., the classroom and school), as well as being foundational to gaining confidence and achieving academic success.

The project experiments with robot brokering in a socio-technical triad with a robot and children. The robot mediates the children to do things together and co-create artifacts while they learn early academic topics and skills. Using Wizard of Oz and ethnographic observations, the project will generate the robot’s mediating utterances that can also be implemented in other advanced, embodied technologies as technology evolves.