Telepresence Revisited, Robots: a mixed reality alternative to Teams, Meet, and Zoom

What would it look like if online learners can interact with students not just in web conferencing meetings organized by the teacher?  

Imagine that online students could join a face-to-face class on their own.

Would it not be awesome if online students could have incidental interactions with their peers outside of the classroom just like when they are in the classroom on online in a class web conference? 

Imagine if students online could actually travel to class to class and have incidental conversations with their peers.

When students returned to school, a few students for health reasons remained online.  The school gave students an opportunity to book access to a teleconference robot that allowed them to travel and attend class as if they were there.  

A students viewing the robot described it as the online student being there and incidental conversations occurred.  The online student using the telepresence robot worked with the teacher to have choice on when they needed the robot or when they should join a web conference for class. 

This achieved the feeling of being connected and placing the student first in being successful. Telepresence robots are not uncommon in other areas of business and can easily be managed through a booking system making the management easy for the student and teacher to access. Compared to web conferencing tools this shifts the focus more to the student and how they want to interact and connect - a shift that is student focused and innovative. 

Edited (May 2022): What does this mean to the teacher?  Executive functioning moves to the student. Rather than the teacher connecting to Zoom, etc., the student is the one that connects to the robot and navigates in the classroom. The teacher views all of the students in the physical room, one place not in two, which is the case in a hybrid situations.