EAGER: Collaborative Research: Virtual STEM Buddies for Personalized Learning Experiences in Free Choice Informal Learning Settings

网络学习和未来学习技术计划资助的努力将有助于展望下一代学习技术，并促进我们对人们在技术丰富的环境中如何学习的了解。这个项目调查了如何为幼儿提供定制的教学脚手架，让他们在非结构化的校外环境中学习科学。这一创新之处在于使用了虚拟STEM伙伴(VSB)，这是一个计算机化的角色，既是导师，也是同伴，可以通过儿童博物馆的展品与孩子互动，帮助他们学习科学、技术、工程和数学。这项研究将研究如何设计和构建这样的技术，以及“虚拟伙伴”如何适应其他学习互动(例如父母和孩子之间的互动，或者博物馆导游和孩子之间的互动)。VSB是一种智能的具体化代理，将在亚特兰大儿童博物馆进行建造和试点测试，工程研究的重点是如何确保代理能够与学习者的知识和激情保持一致，克劳利和雅各布斯将其称为“专业知识孤岛”。主要特征将包括对青少年先前知识的评估和调整；针对知识的社会构建和随时间的连续性而量身定做的互动(以便代理人与儿童一起进化)；以及基于博物馆内外可教时刻的机会主义指导。工程研究将结合参与式设计探索参观者识别技术(条形码、RFID、生物识别)、用户体验设计以探索儿童博物馆嘈杂环境中的输入方法，以及处理参观者“瓶颈”的机制(即，如果多个儿童希望在展览中访问VSB技术，则允许可接受的多用户体验)。学习研究将重点放在博物馆中与成年人和同龄人一起的青年话语，并将在展览后根据“对科学相关性的态度变化”工具进行简短的态度调查。

The Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies Program funds efforts that will help envision the next generation of learning technologies and advance what we know about how people learn in technology-rich environments. This project investigates how to provide customized instructional scaffolding to young kids to learn science in unstructured, out-of-school environments. The innovation is in using 'virtual STEM buddies' (VSBs), a computerized character that functions as both a mentor and a peer, and interacts with a child across exhibits within a children's museum to help them learn about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Research will examine how to design and build such technologies, and how the 'virtual buddy' fits into other learning interactions (such as those between parent and child, or between museum guide and child). The VSB, an intelligent embodied agent, will be built and pilot tested at the Children's Museum of Atlanta, with engineering research focusing on how to ensure the agent can align with the learner's knowledge and passions in what Crowley and Jacobs term 'islands of expertise'. Key features will include assessment of and alignment to the youth's prior knowledge; an interaction tailored to social construction of knowledge and continuity over time (so that the agent evolves with the child); and opportunistic instruction based on teachable moments both within and outside the museum. Engineering research will explore, in conjunction with participatory design, technologies for visitor identification (barcode, RFID, biometrics), user experience design to explore input methods in the noisy environment of a children's museum, and mechanisms to handle 'bottlenecking' of visitors (i.e., to allow an acceptable multi-user experience if multiple children want to access the VSB technology at an exhibit). The learning research will focus on discourse of youth in the museum with adults and peers, and will be augmented with a brief post exhibit attitudinal survey based on the "Changes in Attitudes about the Relevance of Science" instrument.