In recent years we are witnessing an increasing diffusion of new technologies in school contexts, an aspect that implies changes in educational paradigms. The introduction of social agents such as robots in schools represents a significant opportunity both to innovate teaching and to respond to the needs introduced by the digital transformation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The use of social robots, which can be of diverse nature and form, is generally aimed at teaching curricular subjects (from STEM to humanities) or the principles of robotics. From an initial application in the field of special education, robots have begun to present themselves as valuable learning agents, capable of supporting high levels of student engagement, stimulating problem solving, teamworking, and communication skills, as well as supporting curricular learning.
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Education is an application area of Digital Transformation that contains comprehensive technology, personnel, and budget strategy (Barr, 2019). In the education field, common transformation efforts range from content conversion to automating administrative processes and integrating systems. As new learning applications, media channels, forms, as well as communication and collaboration technologies emerge, IT teams are faced with a re-evaluation of security, personnel, budget, and operational issues (Barr, 2019; Sundqvist, Koch, Birberg, Thornberg, Barr, Heimann, 2021). There are new meanings, opportunities, and challenges in growing up in the reality with an increasing presence of Internet, where the role of robots and virtual assistants is constantly growing. The Fourth Industrial Revolution changes generate great implications in education and growth (Sundqvist et al., 2021). New technologies expand our relational resources, but at the same time they expose us to unprecedented risks, particularly significant for younger people who are still consolidating their identities. Among both scholars and practitioners there is a great interest in educational and socio-relational implications in human interactions mediated by virtual and robotic assistants (Barr, 2019).
This chapter aims to show how the development of innovative educational experiences supported by robots could represent a way to create shared value with the community (Sundqvist et al., 2021). But why is it so important to think about the link between Digital Transformation and education?
People spend many hours online every day, furthermore the Covid-19 pandemic has even increased the continuous connection between humans and computers (Barr, 2019). Today, a 5-year-old child, who cannot write yet, already has at least 500 hours of experienced technology (Sundqvist et al., 2021). At 18 years old, on the other hand, 15,000 hours are estimated, the time required to become an expert concert pianist. What happens to a child’s brain when it is exposed to technologies for too long? There is a negative impact on language abilities, caused by an alteration in the white matter of the brain (Sundqvist et al., 2021). Technology impacts on white matter integrity in brain areas related to executive and linguistic functions (Barr, 2019). An early access to technology could be risky for a child, therefore it is functional to limit its use to 30 minutes a day until he or she is 6 years old, and using the devices to symbolically reproduce daily life, rather than just as a simple screen. A responsible use of technology aims to acquire relational and social rules that facilitate the access to society and relations (Sundqvist et al., 2021). It is indeed true that the use of technologies impacts on social and emotional intelligence too, for this reason we have to use it carefully.
But what is the positive aspect? Young people learn to use technology in a more intuitive way: older generations invest energy in learning and using technologies, while digital natives understand immediately what to do. Many technological companies, in fact, are launched by young people (Sundqvist et al., 2021). Moreover, digital natives make use of technologies not accessible to previous generations. Finally, they are able to incorporate technology as they use it; for example, while they are texting, they use more fingers than their parents (Barr, 2019). Technology also makes it possible to leave physical places and enter the digital world, a relational space that cannot be seen. There is a lack of body, of oneself and of the other; this could represent a limitation for the development of empathy and emotional intelligence but, on the other hand, the lack of the physical sphere can be an opportunity to win the shyness. The lack of contextual constraints helps to be more uninhibited (with more freedom of expression in both a positive and negative way), it is a resource to express themselves with greater freedom and has effects on well-being (Sundqvist et al., 2021). Through new technologies it is possible to develop weak forms of interaction, a relational opportunity. How to promote the positive use of new technologies? We need an educational work that considers the growth phase, focused on a number of key points (Sundqvist et al., 2021):
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Accompanying awareness (regulating emotions, empathy, skills) in the use of new technologies.
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Digital awareness: what risks and opportunities, what does it mean to use them?
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Working on rules and sharing.
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Providing positive role models (adults are the first ones to make an immoderate and unconscious use of technology and social media).