IEEE ICRA 2002 Workshop on Educational Applicatons of Online Robots

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IEEE ICRA 2002Workshop on Educational
Applicatons of Online Robots

• Summary Conclusions by Gerard McKee,
  University of Reading, UK

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Workshop on Educational Applications of Online
Robots

• Chairs
• Matt Stein and Ken Goldberg
• Presentations, Open Discussion and Demonstrations

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Presentations am

• Multimedia Technology for Online Robot Projects,
• Gerard McKee, The University of Reading, UK
• Remote Laboratory Access Through The Internet
• Ilhan Konokseven Aydan Erkmen, Middle East
  Technical University
• Collaborative Online Teleoperation and the
  Tele-Actor for Distance Education,
• Ken Goldberg, Berkeley
• Environment for online experimentation and
  analysis,
• Yves Piquet, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

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Presentations pm

• A Statistical Approach to Tracking Multiple
  Moving People with a Mobile Robot and its
  Application to Improve Tele-Presence
• Wolfram Burgard, University of Freiburg
• Supermedia Enhanced Internet Robots
• Imad Elhajj Ning Xi, Michigan State University
• Networked Robotics/Mechatronics through the
  Intelligent Space
• Hideki Hashimoto, University of Tokyo
• EventScope A Telescience Interface for
  Internet-Based Education,
• Peter Coppin, Michael Wagner, CMU.

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Demonstrations

• EventScope (science experiments)
• SysQuake Remote (automatic control)
• plus video sequences.

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Open Discussion

• Five Questions
• What is there to be learned from an Online Robot
  experience?
• How can interfaces and systems be designed to
  foster this learning?
• What are the best educational applications/context
  s?
• How should student experience be evaluated?
• Can a site be designed to lead students through
  an experiment and quiz afterward?

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What is there to be learned from an Online Robot
experience?

• I.e. How can online robots contribute to an
  educational experience?
• It is a thing of interest in itself.
• It is a tool, a medium for exploration.
• It allows us to place the student in a remote
  environment.
• A technology-centred equivalent of the field
  trip.
• It has a novelty value.
• What happens when the novelty wears off? How to
  we retain the interest of the student.

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How can interfaces and systems be designed to
foster this learning?

• Lively/interactive/animated interfaces
• exploit multimedia technology
• video streaming novel, good quality graphics (3D
  models)
• intuitive, easy to use.
• The scenarios we create
• They must be relevant and interesting.
• These must capture and carry the audience.
• They must engage the student.
• They must retain the students interest.

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What are the best educational applications/context
s?

• Depends on the educational context
• robotics science (sensors and controls,
  architectures, algorithms)
• science exploration (physics, chemistry,
  geography, biology space programmes (Mars))
• work crews (multi-skill tasks, automation
  industrial, space and home applications)
• So far, limited sets of contexts
• We need to broaden the range of applications?
• Educational target
• kindergarten, school, college, undergraduate,
  graduate, and continuing education, the general
  public

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How should student experience be evaluated?

• Educational merit for students
• Updating traditional methods (submission/demonstra
  tion of work)
• Incorporating new methods (online)
• Developing transferable skills (presentation of
  work)
• Exploring opportunities (track student
  participation)
• Maintaining integrity/security (copying
  surrogate participation)
• Quality of the experience
• Explicit Questionnaires (online, offline, tutor
  follow-up)
• Implicit Monitor usage of system and the support
  environment (e.g. group communication virtual
  communities online blackboard systems?)

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Can a site be designed to lead students through
an experiment and quiz afterward?

• Can we do this? Yes.
• Will it be interesting/effective/relevant?
• What are the characteristics of
  interesting/challenging scenarios?
• The learning metaphor
• rote learning Vs open, learner-centred, etc.
• How do we control the direction/progression of
  learning?
• Is this important? Where is it important?

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Broad conclusion

• There is considerable depth to the field. There
  is much to be discovered?
• There are many issues, raising lots of problems.
• There is no one answer, but there are common
  frameworks that can be established.

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Online Robots are An important Learning Technology

• Robot systems are instruments that help us
• understand our environment (Science and
  Exploration)
• manipulate our environment (Work crews and lab.
  Assistants)
• Robotics Science underpins these possibilities.
• The Internet and Multimedia technology has
  created the possibility for a new kind of
  learning environment.
• Online Robots help us bring to these environments
  an active, open-ended learning experience.
• Online Robot are an important learning
  technology.
• Conceptualised as follows

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Online Robots are an important learning technology
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Frameworks

• Online Robot systems offer interactive control of
  remote (real or simulated) robotic artifacts,
  either
• directly via manual controls
• or indirectly via modelling interfaces, simulated
  environments and/or educational scenarios

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Frameworks
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Key problems can be identified

• The retention problem
• getting and maintaining interest
• The reset problem.
• The scenario problem.
• The assessment problem.
• The security problem
• access and malicious intent
• The audience problem

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The Reset Problem

• Resetting the environment to a defined state for
  the next user.
• Laboratory systems
• project development and demonstration
• Robotic laboratory assistants provide one answer
  to this problem
• Arena/experiment design provides another

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The Scenario Problem

• Developing challenging/interesting educational
  scenarios.
• What are good, interesting, challenging
  scenarios?
• Targets of control?
• One or more humans.
• Robot (toys), motors controls
• Simulations/models
• Integration of simulations/models with real robot
  systems.
• Method of control
• voting, parameter sets, manual driving, scripts,
  intelligent control (architectures, sensors and
  controls, algorithms), topical module
• Author of control - topic/user-led. Open/closed

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The Assessment Problem

• Immediate - automated assessment-as-you-go.
• Off-line delivery submit reports, code, demos.
• Transferable skills - e.g. presentation skills.
• Present material via the web.
• Acknowledging receipt/assessment of work.
• Providing students with the tools to return work.
  
• Annotation scripts, WWW pages, etc.

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The Security Problem

• Avoiding cheating.
• Avoiding surrogates.
• Controlling access.
• Defending against malicious intent.
• robots
• web sites

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The Audience Problem

• Who is the target audience?
• kindergarten, college level students
• undergraduate, graduate level
• continuing education and professional development
• general members of the public
• Getting teachers on board.
• Educational kits (projects, educational
  materials, challenges)

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Additional Issues

• Re-use of research facilities.
• Turning existing research environments into
  educational tools. Reuse. After-life funding.
• Quality of service
• Delivering an appropriate server to the user!
  Bandwidth problems, networking problems,
  time-delays.
• Education as an application of robotics
  technology.
• Enhancing the presence within the remote
  environment. A target application of robotics
  techniques.

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Action Points

• Encourage the development of online robot
  systems
• Educational Challenges
• Online scenarios
• Create online environments
• Provide forums for collecting experience/practice/
  facilities
• WWW sites
• Workshops Conferences
• Publications (books, special issues)
• Online robot portal online science programme.
• Address the problems

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Conclusions

• There exists educational technologies that can be
  brought to bear on the educational application of
  online robots.
• There is much that online robots can bring to
  this educational environment.
• There is considerable scope for creating
  robot-centred learning technologies.
• Presentation application are important.