A New York school district made global headlines this week for plans to trial a humanoid robot named “Sally” in high school classrooms.

Sally has lifelike silicone skin, long brown hair, and the ability to move her arms, head, and face while seated. According to the manufacturer, she uses “natural conversation, facial expressions and real-time interaction”.

She is programmed to be a stationary classroom teaching assistant and would work as a chatbot to answer student and teacher questions. She would also be available to students 24/7 as a digital avatar online.

Following concerns about student privacy and data storage and tracking, the project has been paused.

But how far away are we from having human-like robots or AI-enhanced avatars as routine features of the school classroom?

Robots are not new to classrooms

Sally is not the first robot to be proposed for classrooms.

Non-humanlike robots (such as “Nao”) have been trialled in classrooms before. For example, they have been used to help students learning languages in Japan, South Korea, Europe and East Asia. They have also been used in technology classes when teaching skills such as coding.

Tools such as Alexa, which responds to voice commands, have also been trialled in primary classrooms in New Zealand. Here, results varied by age. Younger children had difficulty asking questions in........

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