Agent mediated for intelligent conversational channel for social knowledge-building in educational environment

摘要

Agents have played a significant role in computer-mediated communication especially in the field of education. Agents are modeled to act on behalf of humans in terms of their functions, tasks, knowledge and characteristics. We build an intelligent conversational channel where multiple agents are used to create a conducive learning environment. ICC supports social knowledge building through three main functions that are the discourse analyzer, discourse communicator and hypermedia-learning space. The linchpin of all the functions is the community channel where knowledge is communally built and the virtual community where knowledge can be interacted with. The role of the agents is to monitor, control, and catalyze social knowledge building among the community of learning. The processes of social knowledge building are about the evolution and transformation of knowledge within the individual and the community at large, engendering the learning community, inducing communication and building the knowledge repository within the community. In this paper, an agent-mediated modeling framework for the intelligent conversational channel is shown that will be largely applicable to several learning modes such as problem-based learning, inquiry-based learning, distance learning and e-learning.