Pedagogical Agents: A tool for the design and development of Web-based Instruction
David D. Lewis · 2003
Pedagogical agents, when used effectively as a conversational interface, can serve as a powerful tool for instructional designers. These tools are available as webbased plug-ins (i.e. Microsoft Agent, the Haptek Player, & Pulse3D Veepers). This makes it easy for instructional designers to incorporate pedagogical agents into web pages (and even stand-alone applications). Animated Pedagogical agents by providing a variety of gestures which allow developers to create believable characters and provide “the illusion of life” (Bates, 1994). In addition to these animations, most plug-ins include text-to-speech software as an interface for voice simulation (Note Appendix A). Some even include speech recognition for voice command input. But like much of the software on the World Wide Web, most plug-ins are freeware, in other words they are free to instructional designers, developers and learners. This paper hopes to demonstrate, not only how easy it is to use and develop Pedagogical agents, but also why they are important to Instructional Designers or Developers, and finally to discuss the finer points of design, when using these powerful tools in instruction.