A lightweight agent system for collaborative learning support

Abstract

Collaboration and interaction features to support real time activities have become an important feature of many practices and education but often can not be used because expensive equipment and sophisticated software are unavailable in standard classroom environments. We propose an approach to achieve collaboration and interaction effects in relatively simple and inexpensive way by development of lightweight agent platform supporting collaborative learning applications called Inspirational Classroom Environment (ICE). The system is written in C# and uses Microsoft .NET platform and ConferenceXP product as the basis for the development of real time collaborative applications and rich multimedia content. A case study is carried out to use the ICE system in learning children by means of collaborative drawing, animations and personal tutor agents.