1. W. L. Johnson and J. T Rickel. “Animated Pedagogical Agents: Face-to-Face Interaction in Interactive Learning Environments,” International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, vol. 11, pp. 47-78, 2000. Y. Kim and A. Baylor, “Pedagogical Agents as Learning Companions: The Role of Agent Competency and Type of Interaction,” Educational Technology Research & Development, vol. 54, no. 3, pp.223-243, 2006. W. L. Johnson, “Pedagogical Agents,” ICCE98 - Proceedings in the Six International Conference on Computers in Education, China, 1998.[online] Available http://www.isi.edu/isd/carte/ped_agents/pedagogical_agents.html [Accessed: June 15, 2008]http://www.isi.edu/isd/carte/ped_agents/pedagogical_agents.html M. A. S. N. Nunes, L. L. Dihl, L. C. de Olivera, C. R. Woszezenki, L. Fraga, C. R. D. Nogueira, D. J. Francisco, G. J. C. Machado and M. G. C. Notargiacomo, “Animated Pedagogical Agent in the Intelligent Virtual Teaching Environment,” Interactive Educational Multimedia, vol. 4, pp.53-61, 2002. Jie Yan Ruth Agada Computer Science Department Bowie State University Bowie, Maryland 20715,USA, ttp://www.bowiestate.edu Introduction Studies have shown that effective individual tutoring is the most powerful mode of teaching. Logically and financially unfeasible. Create an animated pedagogical agents. What is an APA? Virtual Sign Animated Pedagogical Agents Designed for dear and hearing impaired people. Presents sign demonstrations via a series of 3-D graphical animations. Language learning Animated Pedagogical Agents Designed to teach children to read monitors each student’s performance continuously and adapts the study plan Capable of providing feedback to students Intelligent Virtual Teaching Environment Animated Pedagogical Agent is a cognitive agent Cognitive agents are based on knowledge The environment operates on a non-immersed virtual reality where the student has the feeling of being in a real environment. Enhancing Learning Environments With APA’s Different APA’s with different intentions and audiences APA’s can: Demonstrate tasks (by example) Use non-verbal cues to grab the students attention Emotionally connect with students Must be dynamic and adaptive Technical Issues Behavior Creating a behavior space Believability Idle time behavior Cost of resources Distribution of software Web deployment Conclusion The development of effective animated pedagogical agents is a topic of rising interest in the computer science community. Studies have shown that effective individual tutoring is the most powerful mode of teaching. These agents are designed to be lifelike autonomous characters that support human learning by creating rich, face – to – face learning interactions. Animate pedagogical agents offer great promise for broadening the bandwidth of tutorial communication and increasing learning environments’ ability to engage and motivate students. It is becoming apparent that this generation of learning technologies will have significant impact on education and training. We aim to discuss several of these agents and the technology behind them, as well as the technical issues they face. Abstract References