Virtual Puppets, Animated Characters and Avatars in Course and College Communications

[Kent Brooks]

The online classroom is still seen by some as lacking the human “connectivity” of face-to-face courses.In an
online course we lose eye contact, body language and other non-verbal cues which are available to the instructor, as well as students, in the traditional face-to-face instructional setting. My experience as a student, instructor and IT support for online courses has left me less than satisfied with the tools normally available for online instruction. These asynchronous communication tools include blogs wikis, discussion boards and email.

Experimentation with a tool, SitePal.com, originally built for online marketing campaigns led us in a search for ways to apply this tool and toward the discovery of additional tools. Dodson (2009) indicates avatar is the term most frequently used in academic literature to describe digital representations of humans. The word avatar comes from Sanskrit, a very old Indian language. It is often used in Hindu texts, in reference to incarnations of Vishnu, the Supreme god in the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. In 1992 the term avatar was used in and
popularized by the cyberpunk novel "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson to describe the virtual simulation of the human form in a virtual reality version of the internet (Use Avatars, 2009).

It is most familiar to us currently because of the success of James Cameron’s film, Avatar. Other terms often used to describe this concept are virtual puppets, animated characters, and digital agents. If youhave an avatar it is probably used for computer gaming, on forums or on yourblog or social network. Your personal avatar can represent you using actual characteristics such as your gender, height, age, hair color (or lack thereof), interests and social status. It can be an idealized version of what you would like to be or you can communication through a virtual representative which looks nothing like you. The point is the choice is yours - and no one needs to know what you really look like. Although I will use a variety of characters, I often use some variation of myself. Below is a real picture of me along with avatars that I have used in various applications:

Research at Stanford University (Reeves 2004) indicates that virtual characters can increase the trust that users place in online experiences, in part because they make online experiences easier through better engagement, improved comprehension and personalized communication. Brian McFarland at the University of Houston (2008) says, "My students reported the use of speaking characters in the course material improved their knowledge and comprehension. SitePal provided a richer way to relay information than written text and really helped my students to get more out of my classes." My personal experience has shown a reduction in the number of redundant posts in a discussion form and a reduction in the number of emails with the same question repeated multiple times. Students have commented that the messages help keep them on task.

Multiple analyses in a September 2008 MERLOT report (Oomen-Early, Bold, Wiginton, Gallien and Anderson 2008) indicate the majority of students and instructors reported that Asynchronous Audio Communication can improve online students’ perceptions of instructor presence, student engagement, knowledge of course content, and the instructor-student interaction.

Avatars are utilized for instruction at Western inside the learning management system to deliver course messages, updates and mini lectures. Until recently you have been limited to the stock animated models, but SitePal has recently added a new feature, a 3D photo face which allows you to upload your picture or a picture of a historical character. Preparing a 3D talking avatar of yourself is a matter of taking a head and shoulders shot, uploading it and setting 8 points for the eyes, nose, ears mouth and chin. SitePal takes those points and generates an avatar professor. Basic steps in the process are shown below:

Step 1 Upload Original Photo	Step 2 Set the Key Face Points	Step 3 Cut out the Background Part 1	Step 4 Cut out the Background Part 2

Examples of usage at Western include: Nursing Educators at Western utilize “Nurse Chrystal” to deliver the core content for the nursing preceptorship. Psychology instructor John Phelan uploaded a photo of Sigmund Freud to provide updates, announcements and course information. Child development instructor Lynn Null uses an animated model which provides mini lectures or information about key points throughout the class. I use it throughout my course and usually change the avatar when my message changes to provide a visual clue that the message has changed in addition to the audio message. Uses outside of the classroom have included: Support of our text based web transcript request with an avatar and sending invitations for training sessions via email.

Avatars provide promise for improved instruction and institutional communication. Educators can effectively create animated online characters which can communicate with students & staff. Western Oklahoma State College is using these tools to enhance course content, internal training and to enhance communication. The primary tool discussed in this document is the Site Pal virtual character although we are also experimenting with other tools.

Interaction in face-to-face, online, and blended programs vary depending upon the channels of communication integrated into the courses. According to Faharani (2003), interaction in a face-to-face program is predominately based on verbal and nonverbal communicative behaviors while interaction in online courses is predominantly based on written communication. As further indicated by Collison, Elbaum, Haavind, and Tinker (2000), “in the virtual world, there is no body language from which the instructor can gauge the interest of the participants and,consequently, adjust the tone or pace of the presentation” (p. 1). Therefore, administrators and faculty must be cognizant of the communication differences that exist between the on-campus and online environment.

In the mid part of this decade, as we began searching for tools to improve communication in our online courses, I began to see a significant change in how technology was perceived by campus users as they have a tremendous array of technological options at their fingertips all of the time. The availability of robust open wireless technologies, free online storage, powerful applications such as Google's Gmail, avatars (of course) and
a host of other services and applications, often referred to as Web 2.0 apps. We were beginning to feel the pressure to provide equivalent or better services. Administration, faculty, and student expectations for the provision of adequate technology resources began to increase rapidly in spite of the limited financial means of our institution. The chart below provides a broad view of how consumer technologies in the past several years have impacted technology user satisfaction and how they impact an institutions strategies for deployment
of technology :

Over the past several years I have continually gotten questions from our own faculty and staff about why we weren't using a particular product or why one of our systems could not do a particular function. Many times the question had developed because someone was using a free web based tool or in the case of our introduction to avatars it was simply, “Have you gotten a ‘Monkey Mail?’.” Essentially a perspective had developed in which whatever Google did yesterday, you as an institution are expected to do today. Maybe the greatest challenge in being a small rural community college participating in a sea of online courses and programs is the expectation from students that you will provide not only quality programming but the exact same student services for online students you provide for your on campus students. The questions seemed to be increasing while legitimate answers to these questions were decreasing.

Conclusion

Building an effective online program requires institutions to take seriously the issue of communication. Aggregating text material, inserting web links and subsequently calling it a class is no longer sufficient for online course delivery. It is critical that administrators and faculty utilize creativity and explore tools which may not have an educational origin. Utilizing virtual puppets, digital agents, animated characters and avatars appears to provide a positive and effective way to communicate with students in an online class. Access to such enhanced voice tools and professional development is needed so that faculty can optimize course management system tools that support engagement and foster
human communication.

References

Collison, G., Elbaum, B., Haavind, S., & Tinker, R. (2000) facilitating online learning: Effective strategies for moderators. Madison, WI: Atwood Publishing.

Dodson, J. (2009) Blue Rain Marketing Case Study. Retrieved February 22, 2010 from
http://www.humanityinteractive.com/business/downloads/Blue-Rain_Cas...

Faharani, G.O. (2003). Existence and importance of online interaction (Doctoral dissertation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 2003). Retrieved December 18, 2008, from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-04232003
202143/unrestricted/Gohar-Farahani-Dissertation.pdf

McFarland, B. "College Students Score Higher In Classes That Incorporate Instructional Technology Than In Traditional Classes." Science Daily : Retrieved February 23, 2010 from
a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080324125154.htm%3E">http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080324125154.htm>;.

Oomen-Early, J, Bold, M, Wiginton, K.L, Gallien, T.L,Anderson, N. (2008). " Using Asynchronous Audio Communication (AAC) in the Online Classroom: A Comparative Study." Journal of Online Learning
and Teaching 4.3 Retrieved February
15, 2010 from a href="http://jolt.merlot.org/vol4no3/oomen-early_0908.htm%3E">http://jolt.merlot.org/vol4no3/oomen-early_0908.htm>;.

Reeves, B. (2004) The Benefits of Interactive Online Characters Standford University. Retrieved February 15, 2010 from http://www.sitepal.com/pdf/casestudy/Stanford_University_avatar_cas...

Use Avatars on your company’s website – and watch your business grow. (2009) Retrieved from http://www.squidoo.com/avatarsforbusiness#module82705201

A brief listing of some of the Avatar tools we have used or investigated include:

Some of the Current Players

Oddcast or Sitepal - Free Trial with Monthly packages starting at $9.95 per month
CrazyTalk Packages starting at $121.45
Codebaby Custom Packages and
applications for larger scale applications.
Media Semantics – Individual Packages starting at $295
Noah Animated Character Technology -Packages starting at $39.95
Alteregos