If you could design a teacher, what choices would you make? Answers from the Pedagogical Agents literature

If you could design a teacher, what choices would you make? Answers from the Pedagogical Agents literature Dr. George Veletsianos, University of Manchester

God dag !

Thank you for inviting me to Linköping to present my research!

Unfortunately, jag pratar inte svenska!

Prior work

Veletsianos, G., Heller, R., Overmyer, S., & Procter, M. (accepted). Conversational Agents in Virtual Worlds: Bridging Disciplines. British Journal of Educational Technology .

Veletsianos, G., Miller, C., & Doering, A. (2009). EnALI: A Research and Design Framework for Virtual Characters and Pedagogical Agents. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 41 (2), 171-194.

Veletsianos, G. (2009). The impact and implications of virtual character expressiveness on learning and agent-learner interactions. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 25 (4), 345-357.[ pdf ]

Veletsianos, G., & Miller, C. (2008). Conversing with Pedagogical Agents: A Phenomenological Exploration of Interacting with Digital Entities. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39 (6), 969-986.[ pdf ]

Veletsianos, G., Scharber, C., & Doering, A. (2008). When Sex, Drugs, and Violence Enter the Classroom: Conversations between Adolescent Social Studies Students and a Female Pedagogical Agent. Interacting with Computers, 20 (3), 292-301.[ pdf ]

Doering, A., Veletsianos, G., & Yerasimou, T. (2008). Conversational Agents and their Longitudinal Affordances on Communication and Interaction. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 19 (2), 251-270. [ pdf ]

Veletsianos, G. (2007). Cognitive and Affective Benefits of an Animated Pedagogical Agent: Considering Contextual Relevance and Aesthetics. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 36 (4), 373-377.[ pdf ]

What or Who is a pedagogical agent?

“ A virtual character employed in a digital learning environments to serve various educational goals .”

… and not just pedagogical

… e.g. Virtual Police - Beijing Public Security Bureau See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-yn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082800543_pf.html

Back to education: What kinds of goals? Learning Motivation Engagement Encouragement Comfort Believability Play & Fun

Task

If you were to design a pedagogical agent, what choices would you make, and what would those choices depend on?

3 scenarios

1. Whose goal is to motivate students to study history.

Design an agent: 2. Who teaches medical terminology. 3. Who scaffolds 14-year-olds in science inquiry.

Discuss.

Message Agent Characteristics User Interaction Veletsianos, G., Miller, C., & Doering, A. (2009). EnALI: A Research and Design Framework for Virtual Characters and Pedagogical Agents. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 41 (2), 171-194.

The framework is at: http://www.veletsianos.com/2009/09/21/enali-pedagogical-agent-learner-interactions/ User Interaction example: Pedagogical Agents should be attentive and sensitive to the learner’s needs and wants by: • Maintaining an appropriate balance between on- and off-task communications.

The framework is at: http://www.veletsianos.com/2009/09/21/enali-pedagogical-agent-learner-interactions/ Message example: Pedagogical Agents should consider intricacies of the message they send to learners by: • Using congruent verbal and nonverbal messages.

Veletsianos, G. (2007). Cognitive and Affective Benefits of an Animated Pedagogical Agent: Considering Contextual Relevance and Aesthetics. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 36 (4), 373-377.[ pdf ] Veletsianos, G. (2009). The impact and implications of virtual character expressiveness on learning and agent-learner interactions. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 25 (4), 345-357.[ pdf ] Agent Characteristics example: Pedagogical Agents should display socially appropriate demeanor, posture, and representation by: • Being expressive (e.g. exhibiting verbal cues in speech). • Using a visual representation appropriate to content.

Veletsianos, G., Heller, R., Overmyer, S., & Procter, M. (accepted). Conversational Agents in Virtual Worlds: Bridging Disciplines. British Journal of Educational Technology . Similar ideas in our latest paper … Multidisciplinary perspective

Veletsianos, G., & Miller, C. (2008). Conversing with Pedagogical Agents: A Phenomenological Exploration of Interacting with Digital Entities. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39 (6), 969-986.[ pdf ] … with the learner experience at the center What is it like to interact with agents?

Veletsianos, G., Scharber, C., & Doering, A. (2008). When Sex, Drugs, and Violence Enter the Classroom: Conversations between Adolescent Social Studies Students and a Female Pedagogical Agent. Interacting with Computers, 20 (3), 292-301.[ pdf ] A deeper look at the conversations… Power, Authority, Abuse, Gender

Doering, A., Veletsianos, G., & Yerasimou, T. (2008). Conversational Agents and their Longitudinal Affordances on Communication and Interaction. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 19 (2), 251-270. [ pdf ] But, how do things change over time?

George Veletsianos veletsianos@gmail.com http://www.veletsianos.com Tack så mycket!

Images used are cc-licensed http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeshlabotnik/305410323/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/balakov/399177829/sizes/l/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/29487767@N02/2855271953/sizes/l/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/gigaboss/99992422/sizes/o/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrtea/1278546801/sizes/l/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/cgc/25207706/sizes/l/