Eynon, R Davies, C and Holmes, W (2012) Supporting older adults in using technology for lifelong learning. 11th International Conference on Networked Learning, April 2012, Maastricht, Netherlands.

1. SUPPORTING OLDER ADULTS IN USING
TECHNOLOGY FOR LIFELONG
LEARNING
Rebecca Eynon, Chris Davies & Wayne Holmes
University of Oxford

2. Context
• The importance of supporting learning throughout life
• Positive outcomes both for the individual and society
• Older adults are an important group
• Life stage, ageing population, yet inequalities exist
• The potential and challenges of networked learning
• Lack of skills, low learner self-concept, poor design, complexity of
learning across networks
• Could a learning companion reduce some of these
problems?

3. Companions & pedagogical agents
• Animated pedagogical agents can form part of intelligent
tutoring systems to provide
• Personalised instruction
• Collaborative interaction
• In these environments, a person learns while interacting
with one or more pedagogical agents
• Agents can be designed to provide information,
encouragement, share menial tasks, competition
• Take on the role of expert, a tutor, a mentor, a companion, a peer

4. The learning companion
• An embodied conversational agent - an animated
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speaking character on a computing screen - to support
self directed uses of computers and the Internet for
learning
Based on the notion of an artificial companion (Wilks,
2006)
A supportive, encouraging and responsive conversational
partner that builds persistent knowledge of the user over
time
Uses Natural Language Processing to communicate with
people by using and understanding speech
Developed in the EC Companions Project

5. The interface

6. Supporting learning
• Through dialogue (enables users to identify and articulate
areas of interest, helps the learner to construct a plan of action,
keeps the learner on track, encourages reflection)
• Reducing technical barriers to using a computer (via talking
through tutorials provide on demand and user friendliness)
• Remembering and reminding (reducing cognitive load, and
supporting the organisation of learning)
• A subtle shift not a transformative one
• May “nudge” people into more formalised learning routes or
feel more comfortable in group settings

7. Science fiction?
• NLP is not that new and is improving all the time
• ELIZA
• Ask.com
• Siri
• Early stage exploration of new technological tools using
Wizard of Oz Simulation
• Develop our understandings of learner experience
• Engage in debates about the design of future technologies

8. Exploring the concept
• What do target users think about a learning companion?
• What value could this kind of learning companion have?
• 20 participants, retired, aged 60-75
• Questionnaire
• Use of Wizard of Oz to simulate talking to the learning companion
• Interview
• Focus on the initial meeting with the learning companion

9. What are Wizard of Oz simulations?
• An experiment which elicits data of how people engage in
dialogue with computers
• Participants are led to believe that they are having a
conservation with a machine when in fact they are
conversing with another human in the guise of a machine
• Two ―wizards‖ used in this study

10. Why are they valuable?
• Enables the user to undergo the experience intended by a
technology without the technology necessarily being in
place
• We can explore user experience without focusing on the limitations
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of the technology itself
Produces human-computer dialogue that is necessary for the
development of a fully functioning prototype
Informs understanding of the relative importance of different
technologies
Facilitates more participatory design practices
Helps us to better understand the use of the Internet for informal
learning by this group

11. The target group
• Use computers and the Internet
• But low confidence in using the Internet, lack of skills, and engage
in a narrow range of activities
• Low level of confidence in themselves as a learner
• Poor learner self-concept, low level of skills to learn, may have had
negative previous experiences of learning, but care about learning

12. Emerging themes
1. The importance of learning
2. The challenges of learning
3. Eliciting interests
4. Expanding the range of digital opportunities
5. On experimentation
6. Remembering and reminding
7. Supporting and encouraging

13. The importance of learning
• ―I like to be busy. I think it keeps you on the ball and it
keeps you young and fit, and it makes you a more
interesting person‖ (Sarah)
• ―The people who I’m friendly with are all—they’ve all got
minds like me who are interested in all sorts of things.‖
(Paul)
• ―I'm interested in reading. I'm interested in languages,
interested in the weather change that's going on‖ (Ken)

14. The challenges of learning
• ―I have quite a lot of interests that I don’t pursue in great
depth‖ (Sue)
• ―The others in some of the classes I attend haven’t got the
patience for people like me to catch up‖ (Charles)
• ―I’m an introverted person, I don’t speak to people face-to-
face, really, unless they talk to me. But I wouldn’t have a
problem talking to a computer‖ (Alan)
• ―My mind doesn’t work because I was very dyslexic as a
child‖ (William)

15. Eliciting interests
• ―[It] sort of opened my mind...The problem I’ve got is that I
only want to go the way I want to go. That’s not very good,
because it’s like going down a very narrow alley all the
time. What I need is to start off down that alley but
instead of it closing down, to open up into a broad street.
Probably that’s the best way I can describe it.‖ (Chris)
• ―I liked it very much … it was thinking … it was asking
questions I had to think about for a moment here‖ (Ken)

16. Expanding the range of opportunities
• ―There is very little I can do at the moment apart from email
and look up information on my computer, but I feel that if I knew
a great deal more about it, I would be able to explore things,
which now I cannot do‖ (Grace)
• ―Yeah, I mean, any sort of interests I have I can always access,
I mean a simple illustration of that is—it’s a silly thing but we
put too much salt into a sauce recently. Went on the computer
and e-mailed it, or on the internet, said too much salt in gravy,
and they come up with the solutions right away—so you can
find out, in other words, information you want. What I find
difficult is actually knowing what the computer will do and then
finding out how to use that particular application.‖ (Martin)

17. On experimentation
• ―The kids do it. They like just fiddling around seeing what
happens you know. But I suppose that the adults, like me,
you’re much more focused. Because you want to do
something, so [you ask] can the computer help me do it?
And then when it doesn’t work, you’re just frustrated.....
You haven’t got time for that.‖ (Frank)
• ―I came to computers late as you probably realize, and
trained a little bit, but not sufficiently to get to understand
all the applications and the possibilities of the computer,
and I’m very reluctant to try and experiment with a
computer to try and find them out‖ (Dan)

18. Remembering and reminding
• ―And then for instance, someone said to me ―Send me
some of your pictures‖ [........]. And I thought how do I get
the pictures? Now, I have been taught that. I thought I’ve
got to find this, you know, find the instructions. And this is
the thing - I have to keep on being re-taught.....it’s so
time-consuming. But, if you’ve got something like this that
you can ask the question however many times you need
to be told, you can be told.‖ (Mary)

19. Supporting and encouraging
• ―I did like the way he was responding politely. It wasn’t some
sort of metallic voice, superior metallic voice. [............]Yeah, a
bloke in the pub sort of— He wasn’t arrogant......It’s very
comfortable.‖ (John)
• ―[The companion] is not being clever, it’s being more
understanding. Because with gifted people, very often it’s
difficult for them to understand why people at a lower level
can’t take things on board because they find things so easy.‖
(Chris)
• ―It was very friendly. And making you feel [when the companion
says] ―That was a very interesting question.‖ That always
makes you feel good, doesn’t it? And that encourages you as
well. If you feel you’ve asked an interesting question. You think,
I’m not so--you know what I mean.‖ (Joanne)

20. The challenges of Wizard of Oz
simulations
• Technical failures
• Cognitive load – and choice points
• Ethics

21. Conclusion
• The use of Wizard of Oz simulations could be a valuable
method to employ for a wider range of networked learning
research
• The opening up of potential futures may be particularly valuable.
• It can help inform debates around the development of
future technologies for networked learning
• While there are a number of advantages to this approach
there are some significant challenges