Prototype of Cyber Teaching Assistant

To improve computer-based education courses, we constructed support facilities, which enable interactive communication between teacher and students. When a student falls into a difficult situation, he can send a help request to the teacher's cockpit. When the teacher detects a problem situation, he can answer the question by voice communication or can try to resolve it by remote control operation. However, if many questions rush to the teacher's cockpit, he has to contact each student in order. Therefore, students have to wait for a long time. To improve this problem, we developed a prototype of the Cyber Teaching Assistant (CTA). CTA is a Cyber Person software based on 3D computer graphics installed in the student's PC. CTA reads Japanese text aloud by voice synthesizer with facial expression and plays specified body actions according to the scenario saved in the network file server. The teacher can start any CTA with an appropriate scenario by remote control operation. When the teacher detects the student's question or help request and if the student's difficult situation could be resolved by a typical or easy answer, he can start the CTA with an appropriate scenario. As a result, CTA provides a reduction in student waiting time.