A Survey on Storytelling with Robots

Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Human Agent Interaction, 2017

This paper investigates the effects of a listener robot that joins a storytelling situation for children as a sideparticipant. For this purpose, we develop a storytellingrobot system that consists of both reader and listener robots. Our semi-autonomous system involves a human operator who makes correct responses and provides easily understandable answers to the children's questions during storytelling. We develop a gaze model for the natural and autonomous gaze behaviors of a reader robot by considering multiple listeners and a storytelling object (a display that shows images). We conducted an experiment with 16 children to investigate whether they preferred storytelling with/without the listener robot and the changes of speech activities during the storytelling. Children preferred storytelling with the listener robot to storytelling without it. Their speech activities decreased when the listener robot was involved in the storytelling.

Proceedings of the Companion of the 2017 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2017

In this paper, we present a study on the influence of different social behavior on preschool children's perception of stories narrated either by a humanoid robot or by a human teacher. Four conditions were considered: static human, static robot, expressive human and expressive robot. Two stories, with knowledge and emotional content, were narrated in two different encounters. After each story, children draw what they remember of the story. We examined drawings of 81 children to study whether the sociability of the teacher (robot or human) could influence elements and details recorded. Results suggest a positive effect of the expressive behavior in robot storytelling, whose efficacy is comparable to the human with the same behavior or better if the expressive robot is compared with a static inexpressive human.

Proceedings of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2020

In this paper we specify and validate three interaction design patterns for an interactive storytelling experience with an autonomous social robot. The patterns enable the child to make decisions about the story by talking with the robot, reenact parts of the story together with the robot, and recording self-made sound effects. The design patterns successfully support children's engagement and agency. A user study (N = 27, 8-10 y.o.) showed that children paid more attention to the robot, enjoyed the storytelling experience more, and could recall more about the story, when the design patterns were employed by the robot during storytelling. All three aspects are important features of engagement. Children felt more autonomous during storytelling with the design patterns and highly appreciated that the design patterns allowed them to express themselves more freely. Both aspects are important features of children's agency. Important lessons we have learned are that reducing points of confusion and giving the children more time to make themselves heard by the robot will improve the patterns efficiency to support engagement and agency. Allowing children to pick and choose from a diverse set of stories and interaction settings would make the storytelling experience more inclusive for a broader range of children. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in interaction design; • Computing methodologies → Cognitive robotics; • Applied computing → Consumer health.

Education Sciences, 2021

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY

This contribution wants to show two of the different approaches to Educational Robotics: narration and simulation. One can be independent from another, but they can be put in a sequence made of two steps: first, the creation and organization of a story, then its realization on a stage, where the robot represents a character in the story itself and acts in the real world. You move from a flexible phase (narration) to a rigorous one (simulation). Robotic experiences in educational contexts are particularly important, not only as mediators for activities in disciplinary fields, but also as tools for activating abilities through a didactic approach based on action. According to Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991), objects are not seen by extracting characteristics from the visual system, but through the visual guide of action. Robotics allows recognizing the world by living, not by observing or listening to stories. Robotic, thus, becomes Educational: you can move from the observation of a device to the immersion in the device itself; through the device, moreover, knowledge can be developed from the awareness of the real world's segment you are exploring.

2005

Research on the teaching of programming has shown that novice programmers often come up against significant difficulties in understanding programming concepts as well as in finding solutions to even elementary programming problems. One of the basic strategies which has been adopted in order to confront this problem, were programming languages and environments created with the specific aim to make both the teaching and learning processes of programming easier. A typical category of these types of environments consists of systems where the novice programmer manipulates real entities such as robots and automatic mechanisms. In this research we present a series of pilot lessons for an introduction to programming with the help of Lego Mindstorms and the visual programming environment ROBOLAB. The research was carried out on Greek secondary school students in the 9th and 10th grades. We present the initial results, which clearly show the advantages of this environment over the standard ones conventionally used, as well as some problems.

Human-Computer Interaction, 2004

Takayuki Kanda is a computer scientist with interests in intelligent robots and human-robot interaction; he is a researcher in the Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories at ATR (Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute), Kyoto, Japan. Takayuki Hirano is a computer scientist with an interest in human-robot interaction; he is an intern researcher in the Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories at ATR, Kyoto, Japan. Daniel Eaton is a computer scientist with an interest in human-robot interaction; he is an intern researcher in the Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories at ATR, Kyoto, Japan. Hiroshi Ishiguro is a computer scientist with interests in computer vision and intelligent robots; he is Professor of Adaptive Machine Systems in the School of Engineering at Osaka University, Osaka, Japan, and a visiting group leader in the Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories at ATR, Kyoto, Japan. D o N o t C o p y ABSTRACT Robots increasingly have the potential to interact with people in daily life. It is believed that, based on this ability, they will play an essential role in human society in the not-so-distant future. This article examined the proposition that robots could form relationships with children and that children might learn from robots as they learn from other children. In this article, this idea is studied in an 18-day field trial held at a Japanese elementary school. Two English-speaking "Robovie" robots interacted with first-and sixth-grade pupils at the perimeter of their respective classrooms. Using wireless identification tags and sensors, these robots identified and interacted with children who came near them. The robots gestured and spoke English with the children, using a vocabulary of about 300 sentences for speaking and 50 words for recognition. The children were given a brief picture-word matching English test at the start of the trial, af-62 KANDA, HIRANO, EATON, ISHIGURO CONTENTS ter 1 week and after 2 weeks. Interactions were counted using the tags, and video and audio were recorded. In the majority of cases, a child's friends were present during the interactions. Interaction with the robot was frequent in the 1st week, and then it fell off sharply by the 2nd week. Nonetheless, some children continued to interact with the robot. Interaction time during the 2nd week predicted improvements in English skill at the posttest, controlling for pretest scores. Further analyses indicate that the robots may have been more successful in establishing common ground and influence when the children already had some initial proficiency or interest in English. These results suggest that interactive robots should be designed to have something in common with their users, providing a social as well as technical challenge.

International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies (iJIM), 2022

Though expanding computational thinking to primary school students has become more prevalent, there is a lack of appropriate didactics. Educational robotics offers a possible approach. However, innovations can only find their way into the classroom if teachers find them feasible and meaningful. Thus, appropriate training and further education of teachers are becoming a necessity. This paper reports on investigating professional development for teachers in programming robots by integrating the method of storytelling in their teaching. It draws on the Technology Usage Inventory (TUI) model to explore how an interdisciplinary intervention with programmable robots, combined with the storytelling method “Tell, Draw & Code” can influence the intention to use them in the classroom. Comparing the pre-and post-test and the qualitative data analysis shows a significant increase in positive attitudes towards the use of robots. The learning scenarios produced by the participants show how succes...

2000

This paper describes "Empowering Minds," a collaboration between the MIT Media Laboratory, St. Patrick's College, and Irish primary school teachers. In this project, we are in-troducingLEGO Mindstorms technology into Irish primary schools, along with a framework for teacher professional development that centrally recognizes teachers' passions and interests in bringing about pedagogical change.

This paper aims to present the results of an experimental activity in Media Education and Educational Robotics, based on the integration of the audiovisual language (video), the Robotics language (LOGO) and the ancient theatrical language of marionettes (puppets of the Italian Dynasty of the Lupi Family). This case study is part of a wide research about the role of the multimedia language and innovation in Education, Pedagogy and Anthropology of Media. Our research group works following two experimental directions: first, we consider Media Education as a method to teach the grammar and syntax of the multimedia language, to help students not only to read with media but also to write (they can participate in the collective creation of materials for the increase of the cognitive surplus). Of course, we want to educate them to communicate and produce meanings. They should acquire technological skills and digital competences, and overcome some learning difficulties. Secondly, we use educational robotics to increase some basic notions about the visual and spatial skills (above all, in primary schools) and to help students acquire some processes of reasoning, such as the logic of problem solving and creative problem solving. At the same time, we want to help students develop a comparative awareness between the ancient and traditional language of the theatrical puppets and the modern video language and the robot language. Starting from these aspects and from previous technological and media laboratories (with primary and secondary school students), we experiment with an innovative methodological approach to realize storytelling videos with robots and puppets. In this activity, students create some short films, starting from their imagination and working on the storytelling process; robots (Bee-bot and Pro-bot) and marionettes are the protagonists of these videos. Students must ideate the tale (which is about a comparison between the traditional age and the postmodern-technological age), build the scenography, programme the robots and realize the video, thinking about how robots can move and interact with others and with space, according to the script. In this way, students must consider the skills to realize a communicative video and, at the same time, the code requirements to move a robot as well as how it is possible to create a meaningful product with these technologies. In this paper, we describe this experiment, its educative aims and its results (obtained during the 3rd edition of the Summer Junior University, 2016, Turin, Italy). R. Grimaldi and S. Palmieri wrote 1 and 4 paragraphs; L. Denicolai wrote 2 and 3.