STEVE: A Pedagogical Agent for Virtual Reality.
Jeff Rickel, W. Lewis Johnson · 1998
We are exploring the use of virtual reality for training people how to perform tasks, such as operating and maintaining complex equipment. This video describes Steve, an agent we are developing that assists in the training. Steve isanautonomous, animated agent that cohabits the virtual world with students. Steve continuously monitors the state of the virtual world, periodically manipulating it through virtual motor actions. His objective is to help students learn to perform physical, procedural tasks. He can demonstrate tasks, explaining his actions, as well as monitor students performing tasks, providing help when they need it. In addition to teaching students individual tasks, he can also help them learn to perform multi-person team tasks: he can serve asa tutor for a student learning a particular role in the team, and he can play the role of a teammate when a human teammate is unavailable. By integrating previous work in agent architectures, intelligent tutoring systems, and computer graphics, Steve illustrates a new breed of computer tutor: a human-like agent that can interact with students in a virtual world to help them learn.