Page 211 - Socially Intelligent Agents Creating Relationships with Computers and Robots

194 Socially Intelligent Agents

field notes, evaluation of the stories children produced, computer logs of the
activity on the computers, as well as National Curriculum tests, reading tests
and some limited comparison with another year one class working with the
same curriculum. The subsequent analysis looked closely at the quality of the
human interactions in this classroom as well as the computer interactions and
the stories produced.

5. Outcomes

We present a very brief summary of relevant evaluation data below recorded
over the academic year from September 1999 to July 2000. There were 23
children in this year 1 class (5 & 6 year olds). In particular we examine the
issues relating to ambience and interaction. The large screen and the network
around the octagonal table were used daily for up to five hours/day. The tech-
nology was thoroughly integrated into daily aspects of teaching and learning.
The enthusiasm, engagement in and enjoyment of the NIMIS classroom con-
tinued throughout the year. Children and teachers were highly complimentary
about the facilities it provided. A typical child’s comment when asked about
having the classroom for a year was “because its really nice and people love
it. They always want to play with it all the time... it makes me feel happy and
feels nice.”
In the final interviews the teachers remained very pleased with the whole
classroom and described it as “wonderful”, “a perfect world” and “I wouldn’t
be without it”. Reflecting on the children’s attitude they echoed the children’s
feelings, “they love it... and at the end of the day they love to go there (on
the computers) they still have the same amount of enthusiasm (as at the start)”.
The teachers explained how the classroom helped with their teaching, because
of the flexibility of the large screen and table of small WACOMs and a range
of software they could integrate the computers very easily into their teaching
in a very natural way. The teachers were able to engage the whole class at
one moment through the clarity and versatility of the large screen and then use
the network around the octagonal table to motivate and support low attaining
pupils. Emotional excitement on the part of the teacher also transmits itself to
the children and draws them into the learning, increasing the interaction and
engagement. A strong sense emerges from the final interviews of both teachers
and children that a good helping atmosphere was present in the class. There
is evidence to show that collaborative and helping behaviours were encour-
aged and that children had opportunities to gain confidence in front of each
other and by explaining things to each other. In this sense the empathic and
interactive ambience that we had hoped to create did appear to emerge in this
classroom. Levels of engagement in tasks and interactions were over twice as
high when children were using the computers as they were before their intro-