I am supervising a graduate student's study of the effect of a software agent that compares the entity-relationship diagrams of students who are collaborating over the network, and intervenes by pointing out conflicts and encouraging resolution. Designing open, interoperable learning environments. As I build systems underlying the work discussed above, I pursue a secondary line of work concerned with improving the cost effectiveness, reusability, and interoperability of advanced educational software. To make these technologies viable, we must be able add component functionality incrementally, and enable systems to interoperate with commercial software and Internet resources. To reduce the cost of materials prepared by developers, and to enable greater collaboration between users, representations of educational materials should be shareable between diverse applications across the Internet.
Servers provide shared workspaces, reference resources, and coaching software.
A single synchronous and asynchronous communication model supports incremental addition of new components such as alternate modeling tools, simulations and tutoring agents. I am currently seeking funding to continue and expand a recent collaboration on this question that involved Belvedere interacting with a simulation environment and a tutoring agent from other labs. A methodology for understanding the effects of design features in realistic settings. As previously noted, my preferred methodology is interdisciplinary and involves empirical investigations in both laboratory and applied settings. In the laboratory, following usability studies I conduct experimental and quasi-experimental studies to uncover the effects of selected features of representational tools and software agents on learning interactions and outcomes.