The machines, usually paid for either with funding for students with special needs or from grants and donations, allow students who might otherwise be socially isolated to stay in touch and even make eye contact with classmates and teachers. That helps keep their spirits up and helps them stay motivated academically, according to Judy Olson, a professor at the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. Olson is the coauthor of a paper on telepresence robots in education that was presented at the Association for Computing Machinery’s recent annual conference on human-computer interaction.

Read the full story at Fast Company.