CSCL2003 - T5: Pedagogical Agent Design For Distributed Collaborative Learning: Half day tutorial at CSCL 2003, Sunday afternoon, June 15, 2003

Designing for Change in Networked Learning Environments

2002 © InterMedia,
University of Bergen

T5: Pedagogical Agent Design For Distributed Collaborative Learning

Half day tutorial at CSCL 2003, Sunday afternoon, June 15, 2003

Weiqin Chen and Barbara Wasson, University of Bergen, Norway

Anders Mørch, University of Oslo, Norway

Auditorium 3, Sunday June 15th, 09:00-12:00 (9am-noon)

Overview

The participants will learn the central issues in the design of pedagogical agent systems for distributed collaborative learning. This includes background knowledge on software agents, an overview of the spectrum of agent applications from ITS to CSCL, and the conceptual and pedagogical issues related to pedagogical agents for distributed environments. We give examples based on our own efforts in designing and deploying pedagogical agents in a distributed collaborative learning environment.

Intended Audience

Researchers who are interested in software agents (academic and industry). Designers, researchers and developers of educational systems. Designers, facilitators, researchers and developers of pedagogical agents. Teachers and pedagogy specialists

Theme and Goals

Agent technology has been used in educational environments for some time and a number of agent and multi-agent systems have been designed specifically for educational purposes. Pedagogical agents have been incorporated in a wide range of educational systems from intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) to computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environments. These agents act as tutors, coaches, critics and co-learners. Another role for an agent is that of a facilitator. For example in a distributed collaborative learning environment where users are geographically distributed and collaborate through a web-based learning environment, an agent can facilitate collaboration processes such as participation, coordination, teacher intervention, and group interaction. The main focus of the tutorial is on the design of pedagogical agents for CSCL environments and lesson learned from our own design.

Activities

Software agents in general
Agents in education
Pedagogical agents in distributed collaborative learning
Conceptual design (theory-based, empirical-based, technology-based)
Design spaces (synchronicity, presentation techniques, degree of awareness, collaboration principles)
Implementation issues (technical design)
A case study with demo
Lessons learned

Instructors

Weiqin Chen is an Associate Professor at InterMedia and the Dept. of Information Science, University of Bergen, Norway. She is currently leading the pedagogical agent group in DoCTA-NSS project. She received her PhD in 1997 from Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, and subsequently worked at the Department of Knowledge Systems, Osaka University and at Silveregg Technology Co. in Tokyo, Japan where she lead the development of a personalized agent for e-commerce. She had a two-year postdoc position at InterMedia, University of Bergen. Her research interests include software agents, especially pedagogical agents, distributed collaborative learning, mobility, ontology engineering and personalization in e-commerce.

Anders Mørch is an Associate Professor of Informatics at InterMedia, University of Oslo, Norway. He received a Ph.D. in 1997 from the University of Oslo, an M.S. degree in 1988 from the University of Colorado, and has worked 3 years in industry at the NYNEX Science and Technology Center. Mørch has been involved in designing, implementing and evaluating agent-based systems (critics) since 1987. His work has been published in ITS, CHI, CSCW, and CSCL. His research has focused on real world problems: both in academic context (agents for kitchen design) and industrial context (agents for COBOL programming). His current interests include pedagogical agents for collaborative learning environments, learning at the workplace, and component-based learning environments.

Barbara Wasson is a Scientific Leader of InterMedia and a Professor in Information Science at the University of Bergen, Norway. While a Masters and Ph.D student in Canada in the mid-late 1980’s she was involved in the design of pedagogical agents for content planning in Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Wasson moved to Tromsø, Norway in 1991 where she worked for both Telenor FOU and NORUT Information Technology. She accepted a position at the University of Bergen in 1995 and has had visiting positions at both Linköping University, Sweden and LICEF Research Centre, Télé-université, Montreal. Current research interests are focused on collaborative telelearning, sociocultural learning theories, research methodologies for studying virtual environments and pedagogical agents.

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