Agents in Informal E-Learning

Agents in informal e-learning are tools and technologies used for interest-based learning. An e-learning environment is simply a virtual space where students use technology to gain knowledge. Informal learning occurs in or outside the classroom. Informal learning is considered interest-based because it is flexible, personalized, engaging, collaborative, and experiential. After briefly describing the origins of informal learning, this entry centers on how 21st-century learners engage informally with software agents.

Informal learning can be traced to the theory of constructivism, originated by American philosopher, psychologist, and educator John Dewey and Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher Jean Piaget. Dewey believed that for learning to occur it had to be personally meaningful, to allow students to manipulate materials, and to create a community of learners. Piaget believed students should be given opportunities for spontaneous inquiry and authentic experiences for collaboration in peer groups. Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky added a social theory to constructivism using the concept that students can learn more in collaboration with knowledgeable peers or expert others. From an informal e-learning perspective, knowledgeable peers or expert others include digital technologies. Early in his career, Seymour Papert spent four years working under Piaget. Papert is a pioneer of artificial intelligence and the inventor of the Logo programming language. Papert’s ideas about informal [Page 23]learning are based on environments where students collaborate around meaningful projects and innovative ideas. His research on using computers to teach students led to the theory that technology offers a particularly supportive environment for experiential learning.

A software agent allows a person to perform a task that might otherwise be too difficult or challenging. Agents in informal e-learning enable today’s learners to experience communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. These 21st-century skills are considered by the National Education Association to be critical for preparing today’s students for their futures. The idea of informal learning in the 21st century is causing people to consider the ways students want to learn. Students want interaction and knowledge sharing using mobile devices in collaborative environments. They want to use mobile devices to connect and create content using a wide range of digital tools. Students want the ability to use a digital device that works best for their needs, and they want a learning experience that is personalized.

Agents in informal learning allow students to reshape and contextualize learning resources and then share them with others online or in person. Informal learning is inherently learner centered. Agents can make materials available in a way that allows students to manipulate them so they are personally meaningful and interesting. Digital technologies add ways for learners to actively remodel materials, dynamically map materials, and use real-world tools they recognize that are personally relevant to them. Agents provide a variety of ways for students to find authentic communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creative 21st-century learning opportunities. Some examples of informal agents can be found in (a) games and gamification, (b) the Maker movement, (c) 3D printing, (d) social networking, and (e) virtual reality.

Students in the 21st century experience video games with a level of interactivity that was unthinkable a generation ago. This type of interactivity is being incorporated in today’s learning environments through gamification. Proponents of gamification in the learning environment say students learn valuable communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity skills. Gamification allows students to set goals, utilize different methods of learning, earn badges or rewards, collaborate with interactive characters, earn the ability to create their own materials, share the materials they have created with other students, and get feedback from other students. Gamification includes earning badges in connected learning environments that reward student accomplishments.

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