Remote Work System for High School Students

PEBBLES (Providing Education By Bringing Learning Environments to Students) is a videoconferencing system which combines traditional videoconferencing equipment with simple robotics. It allows elementary school aged children who are unable to attend school because of hospitalization or other reasons to establish a presence in their classroom with a remotely controlled videoconferencing robot. Earlier studies have shown that PEBBLES can be successfully integrated into classrooms at the elementary level. This paper documents the development and testing of PEBBLES for high school classrooms. Results from a preliminary study with three secondary school students using a simulated version of a high school PEBBLES showed the high school classroom environment is very different from an elementary classroom in important ways, namely in the amount of group work assigned, presentations to be carried out and notetaking. This has necessitated changes to PEBBLES including increasing its mobility and adding functionality that would be useful for supporting students in a high school classroom environment.