There was a special visitor at the Board meeting of South East Cornerstone Public School Division last week.

A remote-controlled robot, a tablet with video phone technology attached to a pole with wheels and stability legs, rolled into the board meeting of the school division with I.T Consultant Grant Taylor on the screen.

Taylor was sitting in his office in Carlyle remote controlling the robot over the internet.

"The "Robot on Wheels" was given to us from a vendor to experiment with possibilities of some ideas of virtual communication and so brings in an actual person through the robot," explained Jeff Walters, Coordinator of Instructional Technology, South East Cornerstone Public School Division.

"The Robot can wander around, go into classrooms or in this case we are using it for a consultant to come in and work with some of our other coordinators and staff at the division office."

Walters also said it is a way to get a student unable to make it to the school to get into the classroom. The school division has other technology they can use to bring people into meetings through teleconferencing but this robot can help it feel like the person is in the room.

"The person on the other end can control the robot, and look around and also look at your screen or look around and have a face to face conversation with that person."

The school division will continue to work on the possibilities of the technology for the division office and benefits to schools.