Smart Learning Buddy

Abstract

It is common for nowadays family with two working parents. Children therefore has more unsupervised time than before. Being alone, they are more likely to avoid hard subjects, like math. They could also improperly spend their time and energy. Internet addiction is one of the examples. This research designates software agent, with a life like interface, as a learning buddy to accompany kids and school age children, guide their behaviour and attract them to what they need to learn, even it is abstract and hard, like math. The learning buddy appears as a cartoon character that live in its little master’s real life, with an internal cogntive model driving its behavior. The software agent model of the learning buddy adopted a layered architecture that allows the learning buddy to have different cartoon character interfaces, cognitive models and learning content/subjects easily and independently. A pilot system has been built and four sessions of experiment have been conducted. It has very successfully attracted a great interests of school age children. Every students in the experiment has finished nearly 60 math exercises without feeling bored.

This research is supported by the Victoria University New Research Direction Grant.