Towards multimodal dialogue games

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Towards multimodal dialogue games
Andrew Ravenscroft Learning Technology Research
Institute London Metropolitan University
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Overview of talk

• Problems and challenges addressed
• Why dialogue games?
• The InterLoc approach and tool
• Pilot testing
• Multimodal enhancements
• Discussion

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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

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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)

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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-cognitive tools (Ravenscroft Pilkington,
2000) Scaffold particular forms of dialogue (e.g.
argumentation) for particular educational
purposes (e.g. development of reasoning skills)
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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
  toscaffold 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? Dont 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)

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A mediating tool InterLoc
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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

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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

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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! .
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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
• ? didnt like formal thinking ( hard work)
• felt pressurised to make quick response,
  hangover from chat

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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?

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More information

• Contact papers etc.
• a.ravenscroft_at_londonmet.ac.uk
• http//homepages.unl.ac.uk/ravensca/
• InterLoc project
• http//www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?nameetools2
• Software http//sourceforge.net/
• Research theme
• Learning interaction and networked communities
• http//www.unl.ac.uk/ltri/research/interaction.htm