Salamanca High School plans to introduce a humanoid robot and an artificial intelligence-powered avatar as classroom teaching assistants this fall, according to a New York Focus report.
The Salamanca City Central School District approved the purchase from Realbotix at a school board meeting in June, positioning the rural Cattaraugus County district as one of the first in the country to put a lifelike robot in a classroom.
The female robot, named Sally, is not intended to replace a classroom teacher. It will be programmed to provide learning support to students and educators, while students will also be able to interact with an avatar version on laptop computers.
The district is located on the Seneca Nation reservation in Western New York. The newsletter announcing the project did not provide the purchase price, identify the classes that will use the technology or describe the rules that will govern student interactions with it.
The robot and avatar are expected to be deployed when students return for the fall term.
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