A New Way to Participate: Robot Offers Mobile Interactions on Campus

In our increasingly digital world, the concept of videoconferencing has become commonplace: Skype calls are useful for keeping in touch with friends and participating in meetings; FaceTime often replaces quick phone conversations with relatives.

Now, a technology new to Smith offers a way to have mobile interactions in the classroom. Known as telepresence robotics, the tool is being piloted for use in both academic and administrative settings on campus.

Designed for portability, a telepresence robot allows for a sort of mobile Skype call—“an iPad on a Segway,” as Yasmin Eisenhauer ’94, an instructional technologist at Smith, describes it.

Controlled remotely from a smartphone, tablet or other device with a wi-fi connection, the robot gives the user free range to move and interact easily with people who are located off-site. “It enables an authentic and sensory user experience,” Eisenhauer says.

Smith’s Educational Technology Services (ETS) department purchased one such robot in November as an experiment. Campus community members might well have spotted the robot—which is still without a name—at sites around campus last semester as Eisenhauer brought it to Seelye Hall, Neilson Library and even College Hall for fun impromptu demonstrations.

Eisenhauer says she likes to “game-ify” such interactions. For example, she hid the robot in College Hall and had Provost Katherine Rowe and some of her colleagues control it remotely from an iPad until they figured out where in the building it was located and where it needed to go in order to reach them.

“With little instruction—and lots of laughter—they navigated the robot down the hall, passing curious students, faculty and staff along the way,” Eisenhauer says.

The idea for the telepresence robot arose after two students from Mount Holyoke College enrolled in an intermediate Arabic class in fall 2015 at Smith, but were unable to come to campus for Friday classes because that conflicted with extracurricular activities.

Using the robot, the students were able to participate remotely in small group discussions on Fridays in the Smith class taught by Olla Al-Shalchi, a lecturer in Middle East studies.

Zainab Amjad, a Mount Holyoke College junior, says the robot not only made it possible for her to attend class at Smith, but also really made a difference in the quality of class discussions.

“The robot really makes you feel like you are having an organic conversation with someone in real time,” Amjad says.

Al-Shalchi says the new technology offered another way to help keep all of her students engaged in class.

“In language classes it is very important for students to be able to get as much practice as possible communicating with others,” Al-Shalchi says. “This tool allows us to do so.”

Eisenhauer hopes the new telepresence robot will become more widely used in administrative, extracurricular and academic settings at Smith—wherever there is a “geographic challenge.” For example, “faculty or students unable to attend classes can instead join via the robot; experts or alumnae can participate from off-site in meetings or classes; and students could even invite parents to a house tea,” she says.

Eisenhauer, who frequently works with Smith professors and students to implement new technology, emphasizes that new digital tools “aren’t about the shiny things,” but rather about what individuals are trying to accomplish. In using the robot at Smith, Eisenhauer’s focus has been on “how technology-mediated interactions can help members of the Smith community meet their teaching, learning and communications goals.”

The telepresence technology remains exploratory, and ETS encourages students, faculty and staff to try it out. For questions or to test-drive the robot, contact Eisenhauer at ets-pilot@smith.edu.

Emelie Chace-Donahue '18 (seated) and Olla Al-Shalchi, lecturer in Middle East studies, using a model teleconference robot that is being tried out on campus.