A Progress Report and a Proposal: Interactivity in Ubiquitous Learning Enhanced by Virtual Tutors in e-Learning Contents

It is proposed in this session that the interactivity necessary in ubiquitous learning can be enhanced by the virtual tutor who mediates between the learner and the e-learning contents. Arousing students' intellectual curiosity and raising their motivation to learn are the two great goals for e-learning contents developers. It is supposed that the interaction in the communication between the teacher and his/her students in a regular classroom can be maintained in e-learning with the help of virtual tutor, which appears on the learning contents in a timely fashion to give learners advice, encouragement, reminders, and such. The session includes discussions to develop such a system making use of the most updated technology as well as demonstrations of such a system which has been experimented at Department of Media Informatics. It is proved that the learning environment where human interactivity is essential can be reconstructed in terms of the proposed virtual tutor. This paper presentation includes demonstrations of QED as well as a discussion of the importance of interactivity in ubiquitous e-learning.