Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

This paper describes the first results of the BMBF financed project called H.E.A.R.T. at the Philipps-University Marburg, Germany. The project studies didactic possibilities of social robots in teaching at the university level. The overall research goal of the project is to develop guidelines to enable universities to use digitisation and robotics to their advantage. The project team develops applications and assesses their implementation in teaching. This exploratory study uses a realistic setting (i.e., different courses on linguistics) for their implementation tests and evaluates students’ responses to new teaching tools through observation and qualitative questionnaires. The paper focuses on didactic possibilities, speech related issues, and advantages. The applications that have been developed so far will be discussed as well as the in-class experience (including technical difficulties and implemented advancements), results from the student responses, and the outlook for future plans.