Social robots are being used on an experimental basis already to teach various skills to preschool children, including the names of colors, new vocabulary words and simple songs.

In the future, robots will only be used to teach certain skills, such as acquiring a foreign or new language, possibly in playgroups with children or to individual adults. But robot teachers can be cost-effective compared to the expense of paying a human teacher, Meltzoff told LiveScience.

" If we can capture the magic of social interaction and pedagogy, what makes social interaction so effective as a vehicle for learning, we may be able to embody some of those tricks in machines, including computer agents, automatic tutors, and robots, " he said.

Still, children clearly learn best from other people and playgroups of peers, Meltzoff said, and he doesn't see children in the future being taught entirely by robots.

Terrance Sejnowski of the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center (TDLC) at the University of California at San Diego, a co-author of the new essay with Meltzoff, is working on using technology to merge the social with the instructional, and bringing it to bear on classrooms to create personalized, individualized teaching tailored to students and tracking their progress.

" By developing a very sophisticated computational model of a child's mind, we can help improve that child's performance, " Sejnowski said.

Overall, the hope, Meltzoff said, is to " figure out how to combine the passion and curiosity for learning that children display with formal schooling. There is no reason why curiosity and passion can’t be fanned at school where there are dedicated professionals, teachers, trying to help children learn."

The essay is the first published article as part of a collaboration between the TDLC and the LIFE Center, both of which are funded under multimillion-dollar grants from the National Science Foundation. Meltzoff's other co-authors on the essay are Patricia Kuhl of the University of Washington and Javier Movellan of the TDLC.

Robots Replace Teachers at 21 Schools in South Korea

EngKey, a robot designed to gradually replace native English-speaking teachers, has been rolled out in 21 schools in South Korea so far this year.

EngKey robots were designed to help students with pronunciation of the English language while providing students with the “feeling” of a teacher present though telepresence technology.

The English Jockey aka EngKey in an interactive robot that enables english teachers to teach students from thousands of miles away. Teachers are able to see and hear the students by interacting with the children through a microphone and camera. Although the robot uses a human-like avatar on the screen, the teachers aren’t actually seen, it does however mimic the teacher’s facial expressions by the use of a camera.

South Korea is hoping this program will replace the need for native English-speaking teachers over the course of five years, a cost that the South Korean government says is too expensive and they additionally find challenges with placing teachers in rural areas. These teacher robots are currently being remotely operated by English-speaking teachers in the Philippines.

This year at CES, we got a look at another telepresence robot called AnyBots QB. It’s for video conferencing and sports two 5MP cameras which it uses as eyes to look around the room. It appears a bit like an Segway with a head.

While the geek side of me is wildly excited by the idea of telerobotics, on the other hand, I’m hoping this isn’t the start of a scary new trend in education. Uttering the words “robots replacing teachers” makes me cringe. Although, if you swapped out Engkey’s design with something more like the pic below, you might be able to groom the best behaved class ever.