TotCareBot: A Comprehensive Approach Towards Enhancing Early Childhood Education through Robotics

Robots have emerged as versatile tools with significant potential to enhance teaching and learning environments, including classrooms, laboratories, play homes, crèches, and even at home. Their engaging nature can captivate young children, boosting motivation and interest. This paper proposes a methodology for an Educational Robot (ER) designed for play homes. The ER is capable of moving around the classroom, monitoring children, analyzing their emotions, responding appropriately, and alerting the teacher when necessary. The proposed system aims to leverage the positive impact of expressive behaviors in robots, such as storytelling and pampering. Our findings indicate that expressive robot narration is as effective as that of a human displaying similar behaviors and even surpasses a static, inexpressive human narrator. Furthermore, the robot excels in conveying educational content, although its limited emotional expression slightly reduces its effectiveness in narrating emotionally rich stories. This research underscores the potential of ERs to create dynamic and interactive learning experiences for young children, fostering both their cognitive and emotional development.