Animated Instruction and Social Metaphors

Artifacts at Various Stages of the Uncanny Valley Curve

For each of these either pedagogical agents or intelligent computer-assisted instructional systems, I will endeavor to answer the following questions:

1. How the student will interact with the agent/system (and why)?
2. What the agent/system may be capable of when it comes to evaluating/assessing student's learning (and why)? 
3. For what kind of learning would such agent/system be good for (and why)?

Not being familiar with the majority of these agents before this exercise, I'll do my best to answer the questions based on my first impressions. 

Hal

1. Since Hal does not resemble a human physically, but does seem to have speech capabilities, I would recommend it for tasks that don't require a high level of empathy with the agent. Although there are examples/exceptions to the rule that a human form will result in a higher level of trust, such as in the film Her (2013), I believe that Hal will mostly be useful for things around the level of an Alexa, the sharing and dissemination of knowledge. 
2. I believe that Hal could assess student learning through verbal assessments such as call and response or by asking the student questions and assessing their answers. If Hal has the capabilities to sync with it's environment, it could also possibly connect with an ILE and assess student learning by providing the learner with physical tasks and assessing their completion through its connection with the ILE. 
3. Hal could be useful for quiz-type learning, the learning of straightforward facts and ideas. It also may be specifically useful for language-learning, depending on its capability of translating/ learning different languages. Hal could also possibly provide a type of "babysitting" service, if it also possessing a connection to some kind of camera system. 

Keepon

1. I'm honestly not 100% sure what Keepon does except for dance. It may be a good fit for young learners, as it's packaging is non-threatening and even cute. It could also be a useful traveling learning companion, since it's footprint seems rather small. I believe that in the video someone said, "record," so I'm imagining that its functioning could also have some sort of connection to a recording device.
2. If Keepon can record (hear + see), then perhaps it could assess learning based on a learners progress, by storing recordings of learners responses and comparing them over time. If that's not possible, it could assess learners' real-time responses to verify whether or not they were correctly completing a task. 
3. Keepon could be a good fit for any learner who wanted a non-threatening, portable agent who could be a good companion to track and encourage their learning progress. I could see this being a fit for young children, elderly learners, or even learners with a disability. Since it possesses some type of directional movement, perhaps this could even work for learners with a auditory disability, and a system that paired movement with directions/answers could be devised.  

Nexi Robot

1. This Nexi Robot is definitely the first one that starts to approach the uncanny valley. I actually find it sort of charming (perhaps its still cartoony enough not to be creepy?) This robot possesses both the powers of movement and speech. It also seems to be able to convey levels of emotion for its users/students. I could see students interacting with this robot in much the same way that they would with other teachers. 
2. Since this robot possesses more embodied cognition, I think it would be better able to assess student learning. It could  not only see and hear student responses, but it's knowledge of the physical environment would be able to inform it's context of a students answer or interaction in the environment. For example, the Nexi robot could be a good fit for physical training like a PE class, or Nursing school. 
3. I could see this robot being in a socio-emotional teaching capacity, customer-service, or teacher's aide role. Like I mentioned above, I could also see the Nexi Robot being valuable to teach content that has a physical component in terms of assessment. 

CB2 Robot

1. This is the first robot that I find incredibly creep. I'm not 100% sure if it possesses the ability of speech or even what it does exactly. I think learners would possibly interact with it by increasing their understanding of how it's physical body interacts with the space?
2. Again, not 100% sure how to robot would assess student learning. It has a physical body that appears to be able to engage with it's environment. I'm not sure what data the robot is able to glean from it's environmental interactions, but whatever it gather's could inform its understanding of the learners' context. For example, it could possibly record the rooms temperature and then assess what types of environments learners prefer/at what temperatures they learn better?
3. Maybe this robot would be good for demoing how to engage in certain physical spaces? For example, it could show people how to strap themselves into a seat belt properly, or demo how to behave at the doctor's office. It could also be used to depict how the human body would react in a car crash, etc.?

Nexi Robot

1. Once again, not sure that this robot has the power of vision or speech. It does seem positions to possibly drink, so I think there's an attempt to mimic human-type of activities/movements. Additionally, its outside facade looks much more human, so I wonder if learners would be more willing to accept this type of robot/collaborate with it. Additionally, I'd imagine that this robot is better able to convey emotion. 
2. Depending on this robot's internal capabilities (there's really not that much we can learn about it from a quick clip and it's facade) it may be able to assess student learning via recording, cameras, or interacting directly with the student via the physical environment. 
3. This robot could possibly be used for providing a "human face" when delivering answers at a help-desk or customer service desk. I could see it doing things like giving directions or answering simple questions. Since it possesses a human-like face, I could also see it as being helpful to demonstrate proper affect for individuals who have some kind of socio-emotional disability.

Polar Express Hanks

1. I don't actually feel like I'd characterize this as a pedagogical agent at all. Since this character appears in a film, I don't think it would have the ability of interacting with learners at all in an autonomous way. If we assume that we're supposed to remove this character from it's film context and have it interact with learners via the real-world, then learners could speak to, listen to, and generally talk with this agent. 
2. This agent could assess student learning much in the same way as Hal. Although students may feel marginally more comfortable with this agent because of it's human-like features, it still lacks any type of physical body and thus is not capable of embodied cognition. 
3. This could be a good "guide/facilitator" to help students learn in an online training environment, video game, or instructional video. 

Image Metrics

1. This was by far the most convincing of the agents that we saw in the video.  So much so that I did a double take and was like, is this actually just a person talking about the product? I felt immediately more comfortable with this agent and would imagine a learner being comfortable conversing and interacting with this specific simulation. 
2. Similar to some of the previous agents, I think this agent could assess learning via recordings, visuals, auditory input, and manual input information. 
3. Image Metrics would be great for tutorials, guides, demos, and digital training sessions. 

Supporting Evidence

Studies have shown that robots can indeed provide a stand-in for human interaction. According to Veletsianos & Miller (2008), "phenomenologically, individuals interact with virtual characters as if they were interacting with other humans" (p. 970). Informants in the study shared that they asked the agent questions, experienced a distorted sense of time during their interactions, found themselves physiologically activated and drawn into the conversation, and for the most part, experienced the agent as a humanoid entity (p. 976-979). All of these effects may in fact positively influence a learners engagement and interactions with a pedagogical agent. 

Additionally, there has been evidence of the importance of embodied agents, even when the learner is engaging with multimedia. This has extended from a perceived physical body and has also included a human voice. Mayer & DaPra (2012) found an "embodiment effect" that stated that "students learned better from a multimedia presentation with an onscreen human-voiced agent that exhibited human-like gesture, eye gaze, facial expressions, and movements" (p. 248). Social agency theory provides the theoretical framework for this study, which proposes both the embodiment principle and voice principle, as being positively associated with greater learner affinity and more significant learning outcomes (p. 249). 

In fact, embodied EPAs seem to possess the key in helping students to transfer knowledge beyond the game/training session to applicable real-world scenarios and tasks. Goldberg & Bowers (2015) have also found Embodied Pedagogical Agents (EPAs) to be an effective means of providing real-time feedback during game-based tutoring. Although their study found that "feedback, regardless of being delivered by an EPA, significantly improved performance in the training scenario" they found that students assigned to EPAs vs audio alone, "perform[ed] significantly better on transfer assessments" (p. 10). 

References

Goldberg, B. & Cannon-Bowers, J. (2015). Feedback source modality effects on training

    outcomes in a serious game: Pedagogical agents make a difference. Computers in 

    Human Behavior, 52, 1-11. 

Mayer, R. E. & DaPra, C. S. (2012). An embodiment effect in computer-based learning with animated

    pedagogical agents. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18(3). 239-252. doi: 10.1037/a0028616.

Veletsianos, G. & Miller, C. (2008). Conversing with pedagogical agents: A 

    phenomenological exploration of interacting with digital entities. British Journal of 

    Educational Technology, 39(6), 969-986. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2007.00797.x