Storytelling systems: constructing the innerface of the interface

摘要

Although recent years have seen an explosion in educationaltechnology, there is still a lack of computational tools specificallydesigned to encourage exploration of identity and communication issues.Storytelling is a good medium for this type of exploration as it enablesreflection about the inner world. The paper presents a novel approach tointeractive storytelling: SAGE (Storytelling Agent GenerationEnvironment), a construction kit that supports children's creation oftheir own wise storytellers to interact with. In this system,programming is a vehicle for the transformation of ways of thinkingabout communication as well as for constructing knowledge abouttechnology. In order to encourage children's emotional engagement in theSAGE environment, the storytellers are embodied in an interactivestuffed animal-a soft interface-which is also programmable by thechildren. The paper presents some technical aspects of SAGE's design andimplementation and focuses on empirical results from research withchildren using SAGE