Robot takes hospitalized children into the classroom

The Mobile County Public School System is working with USA Children's and Women's Hospital to bring students in hospital rooms to classrooms. Through the use of an interactive robot, students can attend lessons from their hospital beds.

The face of the robot is a tablet showing the student in their hospital room. The student has a tablet of their own where they watch a live feed from the classroom.

Teaching administrator Stephanie Maddox said the hospital has been working on the technology for years.

"A child in the hospital, not only will have a hospital teacher assigned to them to help them stay in track in school, but they can actually participate in school, in their classes, in order to minimize the disruption in their education," said Maddox.

The first student to use the technology is Causey Middle School sixth-grader Alton Edwards.

"I get to go to school, look on a robot. I get to see all these people looking at me like 'What? This is awesome. This is great.' And I get to see my teachers and my friends. I can see everybody. It's awesome," said Edwards.