Distance Learning Doesn’t Have to Be Boring
June 10, 2020
With US schools closed by the pandemic, distance learning has reportedly proved largely unsuccessful, with one problem being that current educational software does not adequately engage student interest. Yet when many schools reopen, they may again need to work distance learning into the mix. For help in fixing things, technology developers and educators might turn to ideas proposed in Issues by a social scientist whose work on artificial intelligence pinpoints ways to build friendlier software, such as by incorporating interactive characters—“virtual peers”—that students find naturally engaging.