Social Robots and Storytelling: Evaluating Inclusion and Student Engagement through Robotics and the Interactive Whiteboard

Authors

  • Lino Rossi Department of Pedagogy, Salesian University Institute of Venice
  • Enrico Orsenigo Department of Surgical, Medical, Dental and Morphological Sciences with Interest in Transplantology, Oncology and Regenerative Medicine, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
  • Cecilia Pellizzari Department of Surgical, Medical, Dental and Morphological Sciences with Interest in Transplantology, Oncology and Regenerative Medicine, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
  • Maria Valentini Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education, and Applied Psychology, Università degli Studi di Padova

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7346/sird-022024-p185

Keywords:

Educational Robotics, Educational Storytelling, Student Engagement, Interactive Technologies

Abstract

Anthropomorphic robots are becoming increasingly common in educational settings, enhancing language skills and supporting students' learning and emotional development. Despite their potential, research on how these robots influence learning is still limited. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) has highlighted the need to better understand the use of technology in education. Social robots, with features such as voice and facial recognition, are perceived by children as learning companions, significantly improving educational outcomes, particularly in language acquisition.

Our study explores a new balance between cognitive and affective aspects in the use of educational robotic technologies, developing in three phases: intervention design, storytelling with an illustrated book accompanied by playful activities, and qualitative evaluation of student engagement using Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) and educational robotics (M bot 2).

This article is the first in a series that will present the results of observation grids; subsequent articles will follow with qualitative analysis of data collected through focus groups. The research is interdisciplinary, encompassing themes such as collaborative education, educational storytelling, and the use of technologies to intuitively and engagingly mediate educational content.

Downloads

Published

2024-12-20

How to Cite

Rossi, L., Orsenigo, E., Pellizzari, C., & Valentini, M. (2024). Social Robots and Storytelling: Evaluating Inclusion and Student Engagement through Robotics and the Interactive Whiteboard. ITALIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH, (33), 185–194. https://doi.org/10.7346/sird-022024-p185

Issue

No. 33

Section

Researches

Categories

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Lino Rossi, Enrico Orsenigo, Cecilia Pellizzari, Maria Valentini

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The authors who publish in this magazine accept the following conditions:

  1. The authors retain the rights to their work and give the magazine the right to first publish the work, simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons License - Attribution which allows others to share the work indicating the intellectual authorship and the first publication in this magazine.
  2. Authors may adhere to other non-exclusive license agreements for the distribution of the version of the published work (eg deposit it in an institutional archive or publish it in a monograph), provided that the first publication took place in this magazine.
  3. Authors can disseminate their work online (eg in institutional repositories or on their website) before and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges and increase citations of the published work.

Most read articles by the same author(s)