The Robotic Preschool of the Future: New Technologies for Learning and Play

Technology can add elements of magic to play and learning and improve communication between students in and out of the classroom. Robots, as a powerful, multi-modal, embodied technology pose a unique benefit to enhancing collaborative play and storytelling. In this paper we present three technologies currently in development in the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab and describe scenarios in which these systems can be combined to enhance the preschool experience.