Enhancing Intelligent Pedagogical Agents in Virtual Worlds

Abstract

Intelligent Pedagogical Agents (IPAs) are software agents which have educational purposes. They are able to communicate, cooperate, discuss, and guide other students or agents. Some studies conclude that if agents look like and interact as humans, they will enhance the learning process and the motivation of the students. This paper presents a proposal to add Semantic Web Knowledge to Intelligent Pedagogical Agents. In our solution, the IPA has a modular knowledge organization composed by four differentiated areas: (i) the rational area, which adds semantic web knowledge, (ii) the association area, which simplifies building appropriate responses, (iii) the commonsense area, which provides commonsense responses, and (iv) the behavioral area, which allows IPA agents to show empathy. Our main objective is to create more intelligent and more human alike Mentor IPAs, enhancing the learning experience of students in 3D Immersive Virtual Learning Environments for various learning settings.