Digital ShuTong: Reviving the Ancient Form of Learning Support Agents

Inspired by the practice of studying escort in ancient time, this paper describes an approach to the development of learning support agency. The agency is in fact a team of small agents which embody with clearly defined and domain specific knowledge or skill. The agents are not designed as full blown instructors or tutors but only escorting the students during their study journeys and serve them as their assistants. The students still bear the major responsibility of their own learning but the agency is always at their disposal and can offer help if necessary. Among others, agility is the strongest selling point of this architecture. Whenever a new agent is developed, it simply either joins the team as new member or replaces an old agent that is due to ‘retire’ without bothering the students and instructors.