Abstract
Pedagogic Conversational Agents (PCAs) can be defined as autonomous characters that cohabit learning environments with students to create rich learning interactions. Currently, there are many agents reported in the literature of this fast-evolving field. In this paper, several designs of PCAs used as instructors, students, or companions are reviewed using a taxonomy to analyze the possibilities that PCAs can bring into the classrooms. Finally, a discussion as to whether this technology could become the future of education depending on the design trends identified is open for any educational technology practitioner, researcher, teacher, or manager involved in 21st century education.
Highlights
In the last decades, there has been a great deal of research into how computer systems can be applied to assist education
The structure of the paper is as follows: Section 2 reviews several Pedagogic Conversational Agents (PCAs) taking the role of instructor; Section 3 reviews several PCAs taking the role of student; Section 4 reviews several PCAs taking the role of companion; Section 5 provides the discussion of the design trends found in the review; and, Section 6 ends the paper with the main conclusions and the possible future of PCAs to be used in school and university classrooms
From the review of the literature carried out, with the taxonomy presented in [42,43,44], with social [45] and Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) [46,47,48,49,50] criteria have been chosen and revisited as a tool to analyze the possibilities that PCAs can bring into the classrooms
Summary
There has been a great deal of research into how computer systems can be applied to assist education. Some educational computer systems have integrated Pedagogic Conversational Agents (PCAs), which can be defined as, “lifelike autonomous characters that cohabite the learning environment creating a rich interface face-to-face with students to create rich learning interactions” [2]. The structure of the paper is as follows: Section 2 reviews several PCAs taking the role of instructor (teaching and assessing); Section 3 reviews several PCAs taking the role of student; Section 4 reviews several PCAs taking the role of companion; Section 5 provides the discussion of the design trends found in the review; and, Section 6 ends the paper with the main conclusions and the possible future of PCAs to be used in school and university classrooms
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