Intelligent tutoring goes to the museum in the big city: A pedagogical agent for informal science education

H. Chad Lane, Dan Noren, Daniel Auerbach, Mike Birch, William Swartout

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

In this paper, we describe Coach Mike, a virtual staff member at the Boston Museum of Science that seeks to help visitors at Robot Park, an interactive exhibit for computer programming. By tracking visitor interactions and through the use of animation, gestures, and synthesized speech, Coach Mike provides several forms of support that seek to improve the experiences of museum visitors. These include orientation tactics, exploration support, and problem solving guidance. Additional tactics use encouragement and humor to entice visitors to stay more deeply engaged. Preliminary analysis of interaction logs suggest that visitors can follow Coach Mike's guidance and may be less prone to immediate disengagement, but further study is needed.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationArtificial Intelligence in Education - 15th International Conference, AIED 2011
Pages155-162
Number of pages8
DOIs
StatePublished - 2011
Externally publishedYes
Event15th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, AIED 2011 - Auckland, New Zealand
Duration: Jun 28 2011Jul 1 2011

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume6738 LNAI
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Other

Other15th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, AIED 2011
Country/TerritoryNew Zealand
CityAuckland
Period6/28/117/1/11

Keywords

  • coaching
  • computer science education
  • entertainment
  • informal science education
  • intelligent tutoring systems
  • pedagogical agents

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Intelligent tutoring goes to the museum in the big city: A pedagogical agent for informal science education'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this