This article discusses the integration of animated pedagogical agent into the development of cognitive tools based upon Scientific Inquiry Model for invoking learners’ cognitive conflict and fostering conceptual change. In this study, animated pedagogical agent acts as a catalyst while coaching the learner who interacts individually carrying out the hypothesize-observeexperiment activities. Stu...

A virtual agent that explains research informed consent documents to study volunteers is described, along with a series of development efforts and evaluation studies. A study of nurse administration of informed consent finds that human explanations follow the structure of the document, and that much of information provided verbally is not contained in the document at all. A study of pedagogical...

Emerging technologies, such as intelligent agents, avatars, and distributed environments offer new opportunities for the improvement of business games used for training decision makers. The advent of these technologies also creates new challenges to game developers and training consultants. We investigate these opportunities and offer suggestions on how to better address technical and pedagogic...

This paper describes a series of efforts in building and conceptualizing software agents for distributed collaborative learning. The agents are referred to as pedagogical agents. We have integrated pedagogical agents within two collaborative environments, TeamWave Workplace and Future Learning Environment. The role of agents in these environments differs from past work on software agents in the...

This paper describes a small experimental study where pedagogical agents (avatars) are added to voice-over-slide learning materials. Four different agent behaviours are tested: Avatar A performs all the upper-body gestures of the lecturer; Avatar B is animated using few random gestures in order to create a natural presence, but one that is unrelated to the speech; Avatar C only performs the lec...

This paper presents the multimedia product for teaching Natural Sciences to 10-12 years old children. In this product three pedagogical agents, Teacher and two pupils guide the learner through the virtual environment. The inclusion of a team of pedagogical agents permits us to create a micro-model of lesson activity and gives a reliable support of individual learner differences. The script-base...

The successful adoption of technologies in classrooms, we argue, relies on a greater emphasis on content-related pedagogical models for technology enhanced learning design. We propose the content-first design, an approach to creating content sample in the one-to-one classroom—classrooms with a wireless enabled computing device available for each student. To demonstrate this design approach, we ...

The intrinsic motivation to play, and therefore to learn, that might be provided by digital educational games teases researchers and developers. However, existing educational games often fail in their attempt to compete with commercial games and to provide successful learning. Often some learning is added to digital games or some gameplay is added to educational applications. Successful educati...

In this paper, we present a study to evaluate the impact of adaptive feedback on the effectiveness of a pedagogical agent for an educational computer game. We compare a version of the game with no agent, and two versions with agents that differ only in the accuracy of the student model used to guide the agent’s interventions. We found no difference in student learning across the three condition...