Workshop on Robots for Learning

More and more research in Human-Robot interaction is being applied in assistance to human in several context. Robots for educational purposes have been an emerging application this past few years. Some robotic platforms have been developed for educational purposes (i.e. Thymio, Lego Mindstorm). These platforms are mainly used in STEM. Several research projects have aimed to apply HRI to education and learning in order to teach other disciplines such as languages [1] or handwriting [2].

Robots have started to show a real potential as learning or teaching assistant for children, elderly or people with deficiencies. Indeed, robots show the potential to improve individual adaptation by learning from and with the user [3]. Robots have also the potential to enhance learning via kinesthetic interaction. Robots have shown to enable user to improve it self-esteem and to provide adaptive empathic feedback [4]. Finally, robots can be a mean to engage the learner and to motivate him in the learning task.

There exists also dissemination events, often with a large audience, that aim to increase the presence of robotic activities in education: robotic festivals, robotic competitions. With this workshop we propose to create a specific venue for academic research on educational robotics, based on the scientific quality of papers and not necessarily on their immediate application in schools. The aim of this workshop is to engage scientists who aim to gain a dual expertise in education and in robotics (from instructional design to inverse kinematics, ROS to ZPD, Markov to Piaget etc.) into a new interdisciplinary community working on educational robotics. The format of the workshop is oriented towards discussion shaped by participant contributions.