Neither Williams nor her classmates acted surprised or pressured her to show herself. Instead, they called on the image of Olaf to answer her questions whenever they saw her hand raised on the JayBot screen. Jeff and I expected Mackenzie to participate for just a couple hours that day, but her desire for connection was so strong that she remained logged in until the school day ended.

A week later, during language arts period, when completing reading comprehension questions with Emily about News-O-Matic, she actually turned the camera onto herself.

Photos by the author.

Mackenzie continued to log onto the JayBot at 9:00 each morning and remain logged in until 3:00 each afternoon. Jeff set up a double-monitor system and another iPad to help Mackenzie pull all of her school resources into one spot. One iPad controlled the JayBot, another iPad was set for Edmodo and Schoology, the apps through which she accessed all of her coursework. One monitor showed Williams’s laptop screen through Join.me, an instant screen-share program that turned out to be crucial because she couldn’t zoom in enough with the JayBot to read whiteboard notes. The other was available for web searching, viewing worksheets, or chatting via Skype. It was an elaborate multiscreen system, but it worked beautifully.

Alongside the rest of her class, she listened to Williams talk about geography, created a three-minute video on the Great Lakes, and developed SurveyMonkey quizzes about the branches of government — all from home with Olli on her lap.

It was through the JayBot that Mackenzie met her friend Liz. She and her family moved onto our block—four houses down from ours—just before the start of the school year. When Liz got off the school bus one day, Mackenzie recognized her from class. They became fast friends after meeting in person and Liz would shuttle Mackenzie’s homework to and from school for her.

Since Williams taught Mackenzie in every subject, the JayBot stayed in the same spot most of the day — at the end of a row of desks next to Emily. But if they had a special class in a different part of the building, Mackenzie’s friends would pick up her 15-pound robot self and carry her to the next room—or outside with them for their 20-minute recess. “Me and Liz played tag once,” Mackenzie joked. “It was pretty easy for her to get away from me.”

At the end of the school day, after the majority of the kids left the big brick building and made their way to the school bus, Mackenzie found herself alone in the classroom. She was exhausted yet thrilled to have a chance to talk with Williams by herself. She would wheel herself toward the front of the room, to Williams’s desk, and ask for clarification on whatever she misunderstood in class that day. Afterward, she’d wander up and down the empty hallways before logging off, reveling in the freedom of rolling around corners without someone telling her what she could and couldn’t do — a small break from her life that had become so rigid.

Then she’d walk into the kitchen to make herself a snack and hurry to finish her homework before her sister got home at 4:15.