Learning with Sociable Artifacts that Make Us More Human
People often turn to others to improve their own learning. Technological artifacts (e.g., humanoid robots, pedagogical agents/avatars) often consist of human-like qualities ranging across appearance, behavior, and intelligence. These features often elicit a social response from humans that provide distinctive ways to examine human-artifact interactions. Virtual humans and humanoid robots create unique situations that have interesting implications for peer learning and social behavior. The talk explores possible ways to capitalize on the strong social components of technology that enables students to develop peer-learning relationships (e.g., recursive feedback during learning-by-teaching, self-other monitoring). I will introduce some ongoing research that uses technological artifacts (robots, pedagogical agents/avatars) as a threshold to learning, instruction, and assessment in formal (e.g., classrooms) and informal learning environments (e.g., online learning environments).
Technological artifacts also present an array of interesting design choices (e.g., customization, creating look-alikes, adopting personas) when modeling interactions with human learners, and how identifying cause-and-effect relationships enables us to more effectively design interventions. I will introduce work in this area that explore how facial similarity with peer avatars may influence human learning, and how robotic features combined with specific scripts and scenarios assist engagement and behavior. Finally, I will briefly cover the area of tool development to provide researchers with a customizable platform to control robots, record interactions, and automate the tagging and video annotation process.
Sandra Okita is an assistant professor of technology and education at the Columbia University Teachers College. Her current research interest is focused on the learning partnership between individuals and technology, and how technology intersects with learning and instructional processes. One characteristic of Dr. Okita’s work is the use of technological boundary objects as a threshold to learning, instruction, and assessment. Here, Dr. Okita defines boundary objects as computational artifacts where animate and inanimate features overlap between fantasy and reality (i.e. robots, agents in virtual reality environments, mixed-reality). Dr. Okita’s interest in boundary objects is due to their strong social component that enables students to build a peer-like relation with technology that reveal new insights to the role of social relationships in learning.
Other interests include designing technology assisted learning/intervention in formal/informal settings, and children's interpretation and conceptual development in relation to technological boundary objects. Theoretical research interest areas include self-other monitoring, learning by teaching, learning by observation and its influence on behavior in the domain of biology, math, and agency.
