June 28, 2009
I found the article by George Veletsianos, Cassandra Scharber, and Aaron Doering fascinating, if a bit dense. To be honest, I had no idea that pedagogical agents were even a thing, let alone a thing worth writing a paper about. As our assignment is to react in any way we care to, I’d like to focus on a very specific quotation from the paper. The authors write:
“While examining such work we draw on theoretical notions of cyber sexuality, psychosocial development, anonymity, and online inhibition to illuminate why learners may abuse pedagogical agents.”
This passage stuck with me as I read the rest of the article, and it got me thinking a lot about John Locke’s Social Contract. When I teach ninth graders, who are new to our school (a 9-12 high school), I often spend some time talking about this idea with students. I do this instead of ever really going through the “rules” of the classroom. We talk about how there are just some things that we can expect when we live in a community—from being free of people snooping in our windows to expecting that we shouldn’t be interrupted. We talk about how the classroom is a community and therefore there are some things that students should expect of me and there are some things that I will expect of them. We talk about what happens when a member of a community does not know about the rules—which are often unspoken—in a community or when a member chooses not to adhere to those rules. I feel like this can be a good way of making the “rules” an academic exercise and a way to build community rather than simply me dictating what they will need to do.
So, introducing the idea of virtual agents really throws a wrench into any sort of social contract. Basically it all boils down to feelings, and virtual agents don’t have feelings, right? So why worry about what you say or how you say it? Why consider tone of voice when you don’t really have a voice? Why not say everything that pops into your head because when we interact in a virtual way, we get the benefit of anonymity? These are all the kinds of habits we try to fight against by having the conversation in the first place.
I once heard an interview with Temple Grandin, a noted autism expert who is herself autistic. She talked about how she had to learn, and to memorize, basic human interaction rules. Things like facial expressions, tones of voice, body language, etc. meant nothing to her in and of themselves. So every interaction for her was an intellectual exercise. I feel like existing—teaching and learning—in this virtual world might be a little like that.
Of course, I don’t think things like pedagogical agents are going away. And I don’t think they should. But it does seem to be becoming clear that as we begin to try to reconcile the virtual world with the real world, a new social contract might be in order. Interactions with other agents (whether they are virtual or real) in a virtual setting will need to become more intellectual exercises. I hope for our students’ sakes that these new developments don’t overshadow the existing Social Contract and don’t replace actual human to human contact. It sounds exhausting.
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