Wolverine to introduce AI-powered robot to help with social, emotional learning
WOLVERINE — A few select students will be helping show a new friend the ropes at Wolverine Elementary School, but instead of another student, it’s a robot.
Wolverine Elementary School is introducing Moxie, an AI-powered robot that is programmed with therapeutic strategies to help children from ages 5 to 10.
According to superintendent and elementary principal Matthew Baughman, with parental permission, the robot will be used in the school for socialization and emotion regulation. Using strategies like applied behavioral analysis, he said, Moxie will be able to interact with students to help them improve their social skills and learn how to navigate emotions.
The robot is equipped with a camera and a microphone and can recognize and work with up to four students. There is an application that provides data and graphs to quantifiably measure development with the students. Moxie, made by Embodied, is a Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) certified program, meaning any data stored is only done so locally and cannot be accessed by anyone else.
Moxie will work with students at the school to accomplish specific goals, which can include things like maintaining eye contact, for example. The robot was purchased for a one-time $700 fee using grant money.
The students working with the robot will act as its mentor, Baughman said. The students will help teach Moxie about what it is like to be human and how to be a good friend to humans.
“All of us could use some help growing and our self-regulation and our emotional skills and our social skills,” he said. “The challenge that schools face is that we often don't have the resources to provide students all of the support that they need outside of academics.”
Students will be able to play games and take on missions with Moxie that will hopefully help students with skill development. Additionally, Moxie will be used to help students when they are emotionally unregulated talk out their feelings before they feel comfortable talking with a behavioral interventionist, teacher or other adult within the school about problems they may be facing.
“Moxie is a very non-threatening, cute little robot who will pay attention in a very friendly way to that child,” Baughman said. “We’re really interested to see if Moxie can help that child regulate their emotions after something frustrating occurred in class to get them to a point where they can then reflect with an adult about what happened and what might need to happen next if some harm was caused ... so they can then get back into the classroom and continue learning.”
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Baughman said he’s working on setting up Moxie and is learning the specific commands to help train students that will be Moxie Mentors. He also said three students have been identified, and after having conversations with two families, they are interested in allowing their child to interact with the technology.
“Technology can be scary, but it can also be useful,” Baughman said. “With Moxie, we’re hoping we can use this new technology to help students in the area of social/emotional learning, but it definitely is not a replacement for adults and other human beings. We would like for it to help us be more effective with students.”
— Contact reporter Karly Graham at kgraham@petoskeynews.com. Follow her on Twitter at @KarlyGrahamJRN.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Wolverine to introduce robot to help with social, emotional learning
