Usability of Agentsheets for creating Educational Simulation

Usability of Agentsheets for creating Educational Simulation

Ananth SrirangarajanSundeep GopalaswamyKyuhan KohJingren Jin

Computer Science and Software EngineeringAuburn University

Computer Assisted Learning

Ananth Srirangarajan


What is Computer Assisted Learning?

Computer-assisted learning (CAL) is an approach to teaching and learning in which computer technology is used as an aid to the presentation, reinforcement and assessment of material to be learned, usually including a substantial interactive element.

Traditional Teaching vs. CAL The traditional teaching

environment is a classroom: a single teacher giving lectures to a group of students who are expected to use their notes and textbook to prepare for periodic examinations and demonstrate their mastery of the subject.

The use of computers in education shifts the focus away from the teacher to the students themselves who learn through experimentation on the computer with the teacher acting only as a guide.

Difference between traditional classroom learning

and Computer Assisted Learning

Traditional Teaching vs. CAL

Differences between traditional classroom learning and Computer Assisted Learning

Advantages of CAL It involves any student actively in the

learning process. It allows the learner to proceed at his own

pace. Reinforcement of learning in such situations

is immediate and systematized. The use of computers in this manner frees

faculty members or training coordinators to devote more time to the personal, human considerations of their students.

CAL is very useful in the realm of remedial education.

Disadvantages of CAL The need for teachers and training directors

to move from accepted methods that work to a new and relatively untried method.

The diversity of computing hardware and CAL languages compete with little apparent coordination from professionals in the educational world.

The cost of hardware, CAL course materials (courseware), and individuals to help implement the process.

Mandatory Features in Educational Games and Simulations Create (or recreate) a phenomena,

environment or experience. Provide an opportunity for understanding. Be interactive (i.e. the user’s inputs must have

some effect on the course of the simulation). Follow consistent models of a theory. Be unpredictable in their behavior, either

because of in-built randomness or due to extreme sensitivity to user inputs.

Agentsheets

Sundeep Gopalaswamy


Agentsheets Agent-based simulation-authoring tool that allow

s end-users to build interactive simulations and publish them as Java applets

Operations possible in Agentsheets displaying images computing spreadsheet-like formulas reacting to mouse clicks and key strokes playing sampled sounds and MIDI instruments gathering information from web pages.

Based on grid structure and so similar to spreadsheets

Agentsheets Elements of the grid are called Agents Agents consists of:

Sensors(to detect triggers) Effectors(to communicate with other agents) State(condition) Depiction(look) Instanceof(link to the class of the agent)

Each agent is empowered to act for a client. The client, in turn, can be another agent or the user.

Object Oriented Design

Working with Agentsheets Each window is

called “Worksheet” which is divided into grids in which agents are embedded.

Tools are provided to operate on the agents.

Working with Agentsheets There is a gallery

which lists all the agents and gives options to create/modify agents and their behavior and depictions.

A depiction editor tool is provided to create/modify a depiction. The option to import a image is also available.

Working with Agentsheets The behavior of

every agent can be defined in terms of: Triggering event Condition to satisfy Action to be performed

in case the condition is satisfied

Thus it is very simple to program

Working with Agentsheets There are many modes of

triggers such as mouse single/double click, key press, on method call, while creating the agent and so on.

Working with Agentsheets There are many conditions

to verify such as finding which agents are in the neighborhood, local value being set, frequency of occurrence and so on.

Each of them are categorized for ease of use.

Working with Agentsheets There are many actions that

can be performed such as changing ones own depictions, broadcasting messages to neighborhood, changing worksheets and so on.

This is also categorized for ease of use.

Psychological Approach

Kyuhan Koh


Education psychology Recombination Technique - Teaching bolo, vaca, mala, and pato, Lear

ning boca and mapa. - ‘bo’ from bolo and ‘ca’ from vaca. bo + ca = ‘boca’

Exclusion and stimulus equivalence- when we teach students some

vocabulary, we can get good results by showing the students a picture of each object, and asking them to name it and then writing the corresponding word

- Show pictures and sound the relationship between carnivore and herbivore and display text explanation

Model Design Show relationship with pictures

Display relationship with text

Tell relationship with sound

Model Design (1)

Model Design (2-1)

Model Design (2-2)

Model Design (2-3)

Results, suggestions and conclusionJingren Jin


ResultThis system would be fun for building educational games.

5

3

10 0

0123456

1

strongly agreeagreeneutraldisagreestrongly disagree

Result cont’dCreating visual rules by dragging and dropping thedesired parts to create behavior was complicated.

01

0

3

5

0123456

1


Result cont’dWhich is better, text material or AgentSheet(including

image and sound)?

1

11

3

02468

1012

1

Text material

AgentSheet(includingimage and sound)I don't know

Result cont’dThis system was easy for me to learn and use.

4

7

4

0 0012345678

1


Result cont’dThis system would be easy to use by folks who don’t

know much about computers.

4

10

10 0

02468

1012

1


Suggestions While in "Run" state all the tools

should be disabled.

The size of agent should be flexible.

Text on agent should be supported.

Conclusion Experiment data Programmer's aspect

easyeffective

Educational aspectimage + sound + text

REFERENCES1. Aitkin, Alexander L (2004).Playing at Reality. The Australian National University . 189 -191 2. Albert Ip, Iain Morrison (2001), Learning objects in different pedagogical paradigms. ASCILITE 2001 conference3. Chambers, J.A., Sprecher, J.W (1980). Computer Assisted Instruction: Current Trends and Critical Issues. Com

munication of the ACM, 332-333.4. Chwif, L., Barretto, M.R.P. (2003) Simulation Models as an Aid for the Teaching and Learning Process in Opera

tions Management. In Proceedings of the 2003 Winter Simulation Conference, 1994-1995. 5. De Rose, J. C, De Souza, D. G and Hanna, E. S. (1996). Teaching reading and spelling: Exclusion and stimulus

equivalence. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. 29, 451-469. 6. Genesereth, M.R and Nilson, N.J.( 1987). Logical Foundations of Artificial Intelligence. Los Altos: Morgan Kauf

man Publishers, Inc. .7. Brouwer-Janse, M. D., Suri, J. F., Yawitz, M., de Vries, G., Fozard, J. L., and Coleman, R (1997). User interfaces

for young and old. interactions, 3446 8. Melchiori, L. E., de Souza, D. G., & de Rose, J. C. (2000). Reading, equivalence, and recombination of u

nits: A replication with students with different learning histories. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 33, 97-100.

9. Regan, P.M., Slator, B.M (2002). Case-based Tutoring in Virtual Education Environments. In Proc. CVE 2002, ACM Press, 1-3

10. Repenning A.(2000), AgentSheets®: an Interactive Simulation Environment with End-User Programmable Agents. In Proceedings of the IFIP Conference on Human Computer Interaction (INTERACT ’2000, Tokyo, Japan).

11. Repenning A.(1991), Creating User Interfaces with Agentsheets. In Proceedings of the 1991 IEEE Symposium on Applied Computing, Kansas City, Missouri, 191-196.

12. Repenning, A., and Sumner, T.(1995), Agentsheets: A Medium for Creating Domain-Oriented Visual Languages. In IEEE Computer, Vol. 28, 17-25

Usability of Agentsheets for creating Educational Simulation

Documents

Transcript of Usability of Agentsheets for creating Educational Simulation