Character Education Using Pedagogical Agents and Socratic Voice

Promoting ethical, responsible, and caring young people is a perennial aim of education. Schools are invited to include moral teaching in every possible curriculum, such as the core subjects and sports teams and clubs. Efforts have been done to find other teaching ways other than traditional ones such as games or role play or engaging students in moral dilemmas. Computer games have been always found as one of the most engaging learning platforms. This paper introduces AEINS, a learning environment that is designed and implemented based on the learning theories such as: Bloom’s Taxonomy, Keller’s ARCS model and Gagné’s Nine Principles. The learning environment allows the students to interact with different moral dilemmas and see the effect of their choices on themselves and others. AEINS makes use of the Socratic Method as its predominant teaching pedagogy and employs pedagogical agents to supply the educational process. AEINS evaluation results indicated development of moral reasoning and transfer of moral virtues to its users.