CBTs are worthless Umm hello!

mid-afternoon on Tuesday, the 29th of November 2005 by Chad

Attractive Virtual Professors Draw Student Attention:

There’s a simple reason why computers have not taken over teachers’ jobs: They’re boring, unpersuasive, unattractive and soulless.

That may soon change if Amy Baylor can perfect the virtual professors she’s working on.

“Up until now, the personal computer’s potential to be a valuable teaching and learning tool has been stymied by its ’soulless’ nature,” says Baylor, a professor of instructional systems at Florida State University’s Research of Innovative Technologies for Learning (RITL). “We’re using computers to simulate human beings in a controlled manner so we can investigate how they affect and persuade people.”

Baylor is focusing on friendly facial expressions, soothing hand gestures, and a “coolly intelligent voice” to create characters that are ” both disarmingly lifelike and surprisingly persuasive.”

Early tests show Baylor might be on to something.

Do me a favor and check out the images of the “virtual professors”. While at least they don’t claim to be American Indian and call for death to US troops, they are very… creepy looking. And I don’t mean creepy in a “too close to human” sense either.