Personalization Principle #2: Use Effective On-Screen Coaches to Promote Learning

Clark and Mayer (2011) suggest or recommend the use of pedagogical agents in the design and development of online instructional materials (p 193). Their major interest is such agents regards their abilities to employ sound instructional techniques that foster learning.The authors do not address the question of the ages of the learners who may benefit from the use of such agents. Nor do the authors adequately address the necessary nature of interaction of the agent with learners (in my opinion).

Direct link to example above

The example above is from the Oddcast company that sells hosting services for its variety of agents, used for marketing and other purposes. I used one of their agents with some of my adult students years ago. The response of the students was remarkably underwhelming. In fact, no one provided any feedback to me at all. The instructional capacities of my agent, "Alvin" were limited. In the absence of any feedback, and faced with a monthly charge for Oddcast hosting, Alvin was of short duration. My guess is that such instructional resources work better with children, and that unless the programming behind the avatar allows it to provide highly personalized feedback to learners, the novelty does not last long. I believe that the demonstration above is an adequate example of the use of an avatar for marketing or instructional purposes.

References

Clark, R. C. & Mayer, R.E. (2011). E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven Guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.