The benefits of the personalization and adaptation of computer applications to each user have been widely reported in recent decades. Educational applications are not an exception, both in e-learning, i.e. the use of electronic media to teach or assess, and b-learning blended learning), i.e. to combine traditional face-to-face instruction with electronic media.

colocated with UMAP 2010 (hawaii.edu/UMAP2010/)
held at the Hilton Waikoloa Village Hotel on the Kona side of the “Big Island” of Hawaii

Deadlines

• March 30, 2010: Submission of papers
• April 30, 2010: Notification of acceptance
• May 15, 2010: Camera-ready paper
• June 21, 2010: Workshop (morning)

Key Questions

The workshop will address the following question:

How does the use of Pedagogic Conversational Agents in e-b/Learning systems permit better
personalization and adaptation?

Several more specific questions will address this general point:

1. Which educational systems are currently using Pedagogic Conversational Agents?
2. From those educational systems, which systems have improved the personalization and adaptation of their content? How was this evaluated?
3. In cases where the personalization and adaptation has not been improved, what may be the causes?
4. In cases where the personalization and adaptation has been improved, in which way?
Which technique(s) has/have been used? Can this be used in other domains and/or educational applications?

Topics

The topics of interest of this workshop include but are not limited to the following:
General

• Motivation, benefits, and issues of the use of Pedagogic Conversational Agents in EB/Learning
• Techniques and Methods
• Results and Metrics
• Social and Educational Issues

Pedagogic Conversational Agents

• Definition and taxonomy of Pedagogic Conversational Agents
• Learner Companions
• Teachable Agents
• Virtual Tutors
• Question-Answering tutors
• Other
• Educational systems using Pedagogic Conversational Agents
• Case Studies: impact of the use of the Pedagogic Conversational Agents

Adaptation using Conversational Agents in E-B/Learning

• Generated Open Student Models
• Negotiated Student Model with the Pedagogic Conversational Agent
• User Studies and Experiences
• Evaluation

Submission format and review process

Papers must be prepared in 6-page LNCS format and be submitted by mail to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) in .pdf format. All papers will be double-blind peer-reviewed by at least two reviewers with expertise in the area. Accepted papers will be included in the workshop proceedings published on-line by CEUR Workshop Proceedings (ISSN 1613-0073) and at the workshop webpage. Selected papers will be published as book chapters of the forthcoming book entitled Conversational Agents and Natural Language Interaction: techniques and Effective Practices to be edited by IGI.

Committees

Organizing Committee

• Diana Pérez Marín,Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain
• Ismael Pascual Nieto,Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
• Susan Bull, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom

Program Committee

• Gautam Biswas,Vanderbilt University, U.S.A.
• Federica Cena, University of Torino, Italy
• Alice Kerly, The Open University, U.K.
• Max Louwerse, University of Memphis, U.S.A.
• José Antonio Macías, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
• Liliana Santacruz, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain
• Olga Santos, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Spain
• Dimitris Spiliotopoulos, University of Athens, Greece
• Carlo Strapparava, FBK-irst, Italy
• Kate Taylor, Sanger Institute, U.K.
• George Veletsianos, University of Texas, U.S.A.