HAPA: Harvester and Pedagogical Agents in E-learning Environments

Abstract

In the field of e-learning and tutoring systems two categories of software agents are of the special interest: harvester and pedagogical agents. This paper proposes a novel e-learning system that successfully combines both of these agent categories and introduces two distinct sub-types of pedagogical agents helpful and misleading. Whereas helpful agents provide the correct guidance for the given problem, misleading agents try to guide the learning process in the wrong direction by offering false hints and inadequate solutions. The rationale behind this approach is to motivate students not to trust the agent's instructions blindly, but to employ critical thinking. Consequently, students will be put in a "softly stressed" environment in order to prepare them for real working environments in their future work in companies. Nevertheless students themselves will decide on the correct solution to the problem in question.

The role of E-Learning generated by the COVID-19 epidemic in higher education

“…Technological progress, the increasing national and international interdependence of companies and the liberalization of the markets lead to problems in almost all areas of the economy, which are characterized, among other things, by increasing dynamics, interconnectedness, and increasing opacity. The handling and management of such complex economic situations with ever-shorter decision cycles is one of the essential requirements for the management of the future [20], [21], [25], [27]. At the same time, the importance of the "information" factor as one of the main determinants of problemsolving and decision making has steadily increased in recent years.…”

“…Finally, the "student-centric" factor is the application of the well-known client-centered strategy [11]. This benefits from greater transparency and improved communication and interaction options on digital platforms [16], [21], [27].…”

“…Figure 1: The relationship about TAM and the sustainability of universities It is difficult to discover an explanation of the term e-learning in the literature. On the one hand, this can be traced back to the circumstance that the concept of e-learning has become recognized to define e-learning approaches, but it still requests to be avowed alongside numerous other designations and attempts at arrangement [12], [21], [27]. It doesn't matter if it is computer-based learning, computer-assisted teaching, computer-mediated learning, or computer-assisted learning: most of these are comparable concepts that cannot be straight distinguished from each other.…”

Can a Learning Companion Be Used to Continue Teaching Programming to Children Even During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

“…There are many different PCAs applied to different domains and to develop competences from Pre-Primary to Higher Education [39] , [40] . Some domains in which PCAs have been used successfully are: Science [36] , Math [41] , Languages [42] , Storytelling [43] , Social skills [44] , Operating Systems [45] and Programming [46] for Higher Education in object-oriented languages such as C++ [47] and JAVA [48] , [49] , procedural languages such as C [50] , database management such as SQL [51] and the tangible programming Tern in Museums [52] , [53] .…”

Pedagogical Agents in an Adaptive E-learning System

“…A constructivist theory can be understood from the perspective of both psychology and philosophy [18]. The significance of this theory is that the students develop their own meaning and knowledge through their adaptive e-learning systems [19]. Constructivist theory significantly emphasises upon learners working in groups in order to get engaged in the elearning experience.…”