Towards multimodal dialogue games

1. Towards multimodal dialogue games Andrew Ravenscroft Learning Technology Research Institute London Metropolitan University

2. Overview of talk • Problems and challenges addressed • Why dialogue games? • The InterLoc approach and tool • Pilot testing • Multimodal enhancements • Discussion

3. Educational problem • Promoting the development of dialogical and reasoning skills across educational contexts (traditional HE, ODL, Continuing Education etc.) • Common problems of limited participation and superficial interaction with generic CMC tools well documented (e.g. Bonk et al., 1998) • Need to promote deep dialogical learning • engaging, meaningful and ‘transformative’ interactions • link social and cognitive dimensions of learning process • Improve knowledge and learning processes (e.g. internalisation of dialectic and reasoning processes) • Iterative internalisation (Elsayed & Hartley, 2005) …promote the development and practice of thinking and ‘interthinking’

4. Technical challenge • Realising the ‘Open Source’ vision for learning technology: • working within the UK JISC ELF (E-Learning Framework) • develop e-learning tools that are reusable, adaptable and interoperable with other tools and applications • tools development follows conventions for Open Standards and developed within the Open Source community (e.g. software on Sourceforge) • two e-tools projects funded by JISC to develop and pilot test Dialogue Game/InterLoc approach (though inspired by and build upon lots of other work)

5. Why (Educational) Dialogue Games? A method for specifying interaction designs in terms of dialogue features (e.g. goals, roles, tactics and rules) needed to realise particular pedagogical goals (e.g. critical discussion and reasoning, creative thinking) A level of description that captures these features and is capable of being implemented through socio-cognitivetools (Ravenscroft & Pilkington, 2000) Scaffold particular forms of dialogue (e.g. argumentation) for particular educational purposes (e.g. development of reasoning skills)

6. Educational Dialogue Games: features • Pedagogical goals (or purpose) for conducting the game, approx. the type of game supported (e.g. critical discussion and reasoning, exploratory talk, creative thinking). • Numbers of players (e.g. small groups of 4 - 8) • Roles of the participants - may be symmetrical or asymmetrical (discussant, facilitator etc.) • Dialogue Moves (or tactics) that represent the intention of the performed utterances, e.g. Inform, Question, Challenge. • In designed tools: locution Openers used to‘scaffold’ the expression of the actual ‘surface level’ realisation of the Moves, that may vary depending on the particular game being played (e.g. I think…, Let me explain…, Why do you say that…? Don’t we need more evidence…?) • Rules of interaction that guide and structure the dialogue process in ways that make it legitimate, coherent and relevant in meeting the pedagogical goals (e.g. turn-taking and permissible move sequences)

7. A mediating tool : InterLoc

8. Pilot testing: Contexts & details • 4 Universities: LonMet, OU, Soton, Oxford • Range of students and contexts (HE, ODL, Cont.Ed) • 4 × 4-8 LonMet/OU, 2 × 4-8 Soton/Oxford (48-96) • DGs added or linked to course curriculum • Comp. Science, PGCE Maths, MSc Science, Philosophy • Methods: • Post game questionnaire, follow up interviews (students & lecturers), DA of transcripts …data collection two thirds complete

9. Pilot testing: Interim findings …student feedback positive and interesting (responses to open questions) • Enjoyable (“I loved it!”) • Ss Valued DGs as a (new) forum for debate and learning • qualitatively better than available alternatives • Promoted fair and even contributions, Ss felt ‘safe’ to express themselves and challenge others • empowerment of those less confident • Found the organisation and management relatively intuitive (better than other CMC approaches) • Ss wanted to use it again • ‘made them think’ and focussed the discussion • Generally, led to learning and better understanding

10. Pilots: Learners comments Did the dialogue game, using the sentence openers, change how you expressed, clarified or refined your ideas on this topic? Please comment as appropriate (LonMet) S1. Yes it did, with the openers, I then had to t think before composing the rest of the sentence As a student, would it be useful to participate regularly in dialogues like this one? (Southampton) S2. Yes, because everyone can put their views across without loads of pupils shouting! S3. Good point.Often quiet people do have very good points to make, but are too scared to make them. Did you enjoy discussing the topic in this way, and do you have any further comments? (LonMet) S4. yes. %100 …number remarked preferred DG to f2f dialogue! .

11. Pilot testing: the Locution Openers …positive yet ambivalent remarks: + ve • scaffolded contributions • confidence and linguistic skills • variety of options • stimulated and supported thinking • legitimised disagreement, challenging etc. - ve • restrictive • not always appropriate ? ‘didn’t like’ formal thinking’ (= hard work) …felt pressurised to make ‘quick’ response, hangover from chat

12. Multimodal enhancements • Increase expressive and linguistic richness and semantic clarity in an economical and intuitive way (cf. more openers) • Graphical representation of locutionary force of some openers (high, neutral, low) using icons, graphics, colours etc. • “I disagree because…” [high, neutral, low] • More sophisticated integration of multimedia/multimodal artefacts • Improve relevance, motivation and engagement • Increase sensory experience during discourses • Coordination of dialogues about and around multimedia material through shared views • multimedia dialogue games • Use of web-cams/representation of identity & co-presence • Graphical representation of dialogues and arguments (‘argument maps’) • reflective summary and personal conceptualisation and articulation of performed dialogues • Additional input methods to increase flexibility and support additional user scenarios? • auditory input (is mixing modalities in this way problematic?) • handwritten input (via a tablet) • Moving towards mobile possibilities …any other ideas?

13. More information • Contact & papers etc.: • a.ravenscroft@londonmet.ac.uk • http://homepages.unl.ac.uk/~ravensca/ • InterLoc project: • http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=etools2 • Software: http://sourceforge.net/ • Research theme: • Learning interaction and networked communities • http://www.unl.ac.uk/ltri/research/interaction.htm