CRCD/EI: ALASKA: Applet and Library Augmented Shared Knowledge Areas

该项目涉及美国空军学院PI、SRI国际合作伙伴和科罗拉多大学之间的合作。该项目包括构建和测试一个平台的原型，该平台集成了教育领域的共享工作。该平台促进了一系列新的、有效的教学互动途径的开放：每个学生与他或她的个人代理人在解决问题或获取新的课程概念时进行互动，教授也可以指导代理人，所有这些代理人——教授、学生或代理人——都可以立即访问为课程量身定制的小程序库，这些小程序提供清晰的可视化、模拟、动画或更全面的课程概念解释。这些代理相互通信，可以为教授聚合整个班级的特定教学数据。教授在他或她的空间里也有一个感知代理来组织数据，但同时也作为一个观察者，可以向讲师和其他代理汇报情况。在这个项目中集成的三个IT进步包括共享工作空间；数字图书馆;以及有感知能力的动画代理。课程开发研究涉及高级计算机科学学生和教育工作者组成的团队，他们合作创建针对个别课程定制的applet库。该项目的可交付成果包括：共享工作区、applet和感知代理。为了这个项目的目的，共享工作区涉及到一个软件应用程序——比如编程编辑器或电子画板——它以“你所看到的就是我所看到的”或所见即所得的方式联网并由不同的用户共享，并且还允许教师到班级的屏幕广播。这个项目的重点是教学上复杂的WYSIWIS架构，其接口具有真实的课堂隐喻。在这个项目的上下文中，applet是可移植的“小程序”，可以生成文本或视频解释、模拟、可视化、动画或课程概念的图形表示。最后，为阿拉斯加开发的感知代理实现了一种个人辅导形式，代理导师和学生在虚拟一对一的环境中紧密合作。这个项目的代理人与学生进行简单的对话，帮助他们实现目标；他们对学生的请求有三种可能的响应：1)给出答案或调用applet；2)与学生进行澄清对话；或者3)将交互历史传递给教师或代理网络进行解析。该项目的框架很容易转化为许多其他学科的课堂设置，具有兼容的课程以及异步学习环境。该提案利用并扩展了NSF和其他机构在动画代理技术、数字图书馆制作、参与式设计模型（用于制作高质量和可用的教育对象）以及协作式课程研究方面的大量投资。

This project involves collaboration between the PI at the US Air Force Academy, and partners at SRI International, and the University of Colorado. The project involves building and testing a prototype of a platform that integrates shared work in educational domains. The platform facilitates opening of a series of new and instructionally potent interactive pathways: each student interacts with his or her personal agent in solving problems or acquiring new curricular concepts, the professor can also direct the agents, and all of them -- professor, student or agent -- have immediate access to the curriculum-tailored library of applets that provide clarifying visualizations, simulations, animations or fuller explanations of curriculum concepts. The agents communicate with each other and can aggregate instructionally specific data across the class for the professor. The professor also has a perceptive agent in his or her space to organize data but also to serve as an observer that can debrief with the instructor and with other agents. The three IT advances that are integrated in this project involve shared workspaces; digital libraries; and perceptive animated agents. The curriculum development research involves teams of upper level computer science students and educators who collaborate in the creation of applet libraries that are customized for individual curricula. The deliverables for this project include: Shared Workspaces, Applets, and Perceptive Agents. For the purposes of this project, a Shared Workspace involves a software application -- such as a programming editor or electronic sketchpad -- that is networked and shared by different users in a "What You See Is What I See" or WYSIWIS manner and that also permits teacher-to-class screen broadcasting. This project's foci lie with instructionally sophisticated WYSIWIS architectures whose interfaces feature authentic classroom metaphors. In the context of this project, Applets are portable "mini-programs" that produce text or video explanations, simulations, visualizations, animations, or graphical representations of course concepts. And, finally, the Perceptive Agents developed for ALASKA enable a form of personal tutoring, where the agent-tutor and student work closely together in a virtual one-on-one setting. Agents in this project engage in simple dialogs with students to help fulfill their goals; they have three possible classes of responses to student requests: 1) give an answer or invoke an applet; 2) engage in a clarification dialog with the student; or 3) pass the history of the interaction to the teacher or agent network for resolution. This project's framework is easily translated to classroom settings for many other disciplines with compatible curricula as well as to asynchronous learning environments. The proposal capitalizes on and extends substantial investments by NSF and others in animated agent technologies, digital library production, and participatory design models for crafting high quality and usable education objects, and collaborative lesson-studies.