IDML-based Animated and Physical Pedagogical Agents for Computer-Assisted Learning

• Main Authors: Kai-Yi Chin, 金凱儀
• Other Authors: Jim-Min Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/44614762505427447237

博士 === 逢甲大學 === 資訊工程所 === 99 === Current researches on using animated pedagogical agents (APAs) to support Computer-Assisted Learning (CAL) are becoming mature and practical. Most of them use APAs to represent different human instructional roles, such as experts, tutors, mentors and learning companions, in a CAL environment. They thought that APAs can support students to engage in learning activities and have a positive impact on the cognitive and affective development of students. However, the existing CAL systems that integrate APAs and multimedia materials usually are implemented by professional programmers or animators. For teachers, they do not have programming knowledge and lack of the capability of using the animation parameters to integrate their instructional content into digital learning materials. Therefore, an appropriate solution to handle this issue is to provide a CAL development tool that enables teachers to create their own multimedia teaching materials and design APAs without complicated computer and animation knowledge. In order to investigate the above issues, this thesis purposes an IDML (Interactive Drama Markup Language)-based curriculum script for teachers to create their own learning systems with animated/physical pedagogical agent. We also provide an IDML-based learning material authoring tool for teachers to generate their own IDML-based curriculum scripts without programming skills in a curriculum document. Then, these scripts are interpreted by the IDML-based learning system for presenting multimedia materials to students. In addition, in order to produce the most effective communication, this study also combined the multimodal presentation markup language IDML with the APA and the physical pedagogical agent. The physical pedagogical agent has an anthropomorphic body to attract students’ attention and interact with them in a natural manner through physical body and actions. Such agent can create an interactive and engaging learning experience for students. Thus, our IDML-based curriculum scripts and IDML tools not only provide the APA presentation on 2D display freely, but also support the physical pedagogical agent presentation in 3D space. Finally, in order to evaluate the teaching efficacy of IDML tools and examine the satisfaction level of using our learning system, we have conducted three versions of learning system in three target elementary schools respectively. By using statistical techniques to analyze three experiment results, we can understand the development direction of IDML tools, and further prove this study is useful to support effective teachers’ teaching and students’ learning.