AI in Education needs interpretable machine learning: Lessons from Open Learner Modelling

Interpretability of the underlying AI representations is a key raison d'\^{e}tre for Open Learner Modelling (OLM) -- a branch of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) research. OLMs provide tools for 'opening' up the AI models of learners' cognition and emotions for the purpose of supporting human learning and teaching. Over thirty years of research in ITS (also known as AI in Education) produced important work, which informs about how AI can be used in Education to best effects and, through the OLM research, what are the necessary considerations to make it interpretable and explainable for the benefit of learning. We argue that this work can provide a valuable starting point for a framework of interpretable AI, and as such is of relevance to the application of both knowledge-based and machine learning systems in other high-stakes contexts, beyond education.Comment: presented at 2018 ICML Workshop on Human Interpretability in Machine Learning (WHI 2018), Stockholm, Swede

Supporting CS1 Instructors: Design and Evaluation of a Game Generator

Serious games have shown much promise in education, including in the teaching of programming. However, instructors who teach introductory programming often do not have the specialised skills to create serious games. One way to address this problem is to use domain-specific game generators to create customised games as needed. This paper presents the design and empirical evaluation of a prototype game generator tool - the Recursive Game Generator. 30 programming instructors evaluated the tool and found it useful (87%), easy to use and learn (80%); and were satisfied with the tools effectiveness and efficiency. Their positive experiences suggest that such a higher-order tool has the potential to increase the adoption of serious games in programming education, and broadly meet the needs of a diverse audience of instructors

Supporting CS Trainee Teachers with Game Authoring Tools

Despite the current evidence suggesting the potential of game-based learning (GBL) in education, developing serious games remains difficult, time consuming and expensive. This leads to low adoption of GBL in mainstream teaching. In particular, CS trainee teachers are not likely to develop and adopt serious games when they just begin teaching programming. To address this problem, we design and conduct empirical evaluation of a prototype game authoring tool called the Recursive Game Generator (RGG). The tool is aimed at supporting CS educators with little game programming skills. 22 CS trainee teachers evaluated RGG using the standard Attrakdiff questionnaire. A good user experience was indicated through the results of the scale mean scores. Meanwhile, the mean values of word pairs showed that respondents found the prototype: (i) usable for achieving goals; (ii) supportive in terms of novelty, content and stimulation; and (iii) attractive. Additionally, 70% of the participants found the approach of game generation a good idea for aiding CS teachers while another 65% noted that the generated games were interactive, practical, interesting and fun, demonstrating the tool’s potential educational value. Consequently, findings from this study may provide an opportunity for inexperienced computing teachers to embrace the idea of game generation to support the teaching and learning of difficult CS1 concepts

GOLIAH (Gaming Open Library for Intervention in Autism at Home): a 6-month single blind matched controlled exploratory study

BackgroundTo meet the required hours of intensive intervention for treating children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), we developed an automated serious gaming platform (11 games) to deliver intervention at home (GOLIAH) by mapping the imitation and joint attention (JA) subset of age-adapted stimuli from the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) intervention. Here, we report the results of a 6-month matched controlled exploratory study.MethodsFrom two specialized clinics, we included 14 children (age range 5–8 years) with ASD and 10 controls matched for gender, age, sites, and treatment as usual (TAU). Participants from the experimental group received in addition to TAU four 30-min sessions with GOLIAH per week at home and one at hospital for 6 months. Statistics were performed using Linear Mixed Models.ResultsChildren and parents participated in 40% of the planned sessions. They were able to use the 11 games, and participants trained with GOLIAH improved time to perform the task in most JA games and imitation scores in most imitation games. GOLIAH intervention did not affect Parental Stress Index scores. At end-point, we found in both groups a significant improvement for Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule scores, Vineland socialization score, Parental Stress Index total score, and Child Behavior Checklist internalizing, externalizing and total problems. However, we found no significant change for by time × group interaction.ConclusionsDespite the lack of superiority of TAU + GOLIAH versus TAU, the results are interesting both in terms of changes by using the gaming platform and lack of parental stress increase. A large randomized controlled trial with younger participants (who are the core target of ESDM model) is now discussed. This should be facilitated by computing GOLIAH for a web platform.Trial registration Clinicaltrials.gov NCT0256041

Building an Intelligent, Authorable Serious Game for Autistic Children and Their Carers

This paper introduces the SHARE-IT project, which leverages serious games paradigm to motivate and engage children with autism diagnosis in interactive activities, based on the state-of-the-art autism intervention practices. The aim of SHARE-IT is to formulate, in partnership with schools, parents and industry, the requirements for a robust, intelligent and authorable environment for supporting children in exploring, practicing and acquiring social interaction skills. SHARE-IT focuses on two key challenges: (i) developing robust system architecture and implementation, able to support both continuing development of a serious game for children with autism and its real world use; and (ii) selecting appropriate technologies and techniques to allow for (a) multi-device and operating system deployment, (b) the development of an intelligent serious game for supporting social interaction while (c) allowing the flexibility for the environment to be authored by lay persons. SHARE-IT’s architecture is presented and several considerations of importance to enabling the engineering of an intelligent and authorable serious game are discussed. Examples of technologies developed to date are given throughout and a discussion of future challenges offered

Building an Intelligent Authorable Serious Game for Autistic Children and their Carers

This paper introduces the SHARE-IT project, which leverages the serious games paradigm to motivate and engage children with autism diagnosis in interactive activities, based on the state-of-the-art autism intervention practices. The aim of SHARE-IT is to formulate in partnership with schools, parents and industry, the requirements for a robust, intelligent and authorable environment for supporting children in exploring, practicing and acquiring social interaction skills. Based on a previous successful project called ECHOES, SHARE-IT focuses on two key challenges: (i) developing robust system architecture and implementation, able to support both continuing development of a serious game such as SHARE-IT and its real world use, and (ii) selecting appropriate technologies and techniques to allow for (a) multi-device and operating system deployment, (b) the development of an intelligent serious game needed in the context of supporting social interaction while (c) at the same time allowing the flexibility for the environment to be authored by lay persons. SHARE-IT's architecture is presented and and several considerations of importance to enabling the engineering of an intelligent and authorable serious game are discussed. Examples of technologies developed to date are given throughout and a discussion of future challenges offered

Zirkus Empathico 2.0, A serious game to foster emotional and collaborative skills in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Autismus-Spektrum-Störung (ASD) ist eine neurologische Entwicklungsstörung, die durch eine Reihe von Entwicklungsstörungen gekennzeichnet ist, die zu einem Mangel an sozialen, kommunikativen und kooperativen Fähigkeiten führen. Sozio-kommunikative Beeinträchtigungen können durch von Verhaltenstherapeuten konzipierte und durchgeführte Trainingsprogramme für soziale Kompetenzen verbessert werden. Computergestützte Therapien zur Lösung sozio-kommunikativer Schwierigkeiten bei Kindern, Jugendlichen und Erwachsenen mit ASD haben ermutigende Ergebnisse gezeigt. Das Serious-Game-Format ist eine Form der Intervention. Seriöse Spiele sind pädagogisch wertvoll, aber oft attraktiver als offensichtliche pädagogische Hilfsmittel. Zirkus Empathico 2.0 ist ein Serious Game für mehrere Spieler mit verschiedenen Levels und Bühnen in einer Zirkusumgebung. Die Auswertung erfolgte über einen Zeitraum von acht Wochen. Sechzig Kinder mit ASD im Alter von fünf bis elf Jahren wurden vor und nach der Behandlung untersucht. Zu den primären Ergebnissen gehörten die Empathiebewertung durch die Eltern und objektiv gemessene Fähigkeiten zur Emotionserkennung. Die Bewertung der Effektivität und Verwendbarkeit des Spiels für das Training sozialer Kompetenzen zeigte, dass es eine plausible Lernumgebung schuf, indem es das Bewusstsein der Studienteilnehmer für Fähigkeiten und neurotypisches Verhalten steigerte und ihre vorhergesagte Angst in zukünftigen sozialen Situationen verringerte. Nach der Behandlung wurden signifikante Behandlungseffekte festgestellt. Sowohl bei Kurz- als auch bei Langzeitbeurteilungen. Zirkus Empathico 2.0 ist erfolgreich bei der langfristigen Verbesserung der sozio-emotionalen Fähigkeiten in realen Situationen. Zukünftige Forschung sollte sich auf die spezifischen Prozesse konzentrieren, die den Übertragungs- und Aufrechterhaltungsvorteilen von Empathie und Emotionserkennung zugrunde liegen.Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by a spectrum of developmental abnormalities that result in a lack of social, communicative, and collaborative abilities. Socio-communicative impairments can be improved through behavioral therapist-designed and delivered social-skills training programs. Computer-based therapies to resolve socio-communicative difficulties in children, adolescents, and adults with ASD have demonstrated encouraging outcomes. The serious game format is one type of intervention. Serious games are educational but often appeal more than overt pedagogical tools. Zirkus Empathico 2.0 is a multi-player serious game set with various levels and stages in a circus environment. It was evaluated over eight weeks. Sixty children with ASD aged five to eleven years were evaluated before treatment and post-treatment. Primary outcomes included empathy rating by parents and objectively measured emotion recognition abilities. Secondary outcomes were assessed as emotional awareness, emotion management, well-being, and personal therapy goals. The assessment of the game's effectiveness and usability for social-skills training indicated that it established a plausible learning environment by boosting trial participants' awareness of abilities and neurotypical behavior and decreasing their predicted fear in future social situations. Following treatment, significant treatment effects were detected. In both short- and long-term assessments, moderate impacts were observed on emotional awareness, emotion management, and autistic social symptomatology. Parents reported that therapy goals were met, and that treatment was transferred well. Zirkus Empathico 2.0 is successful at improving long-term socio-emotional abilities in real-world situations. Future research should focus on the specific processes behind empathy and emotion recognition's transmission and maintenance benefits

Urban Studies

This work contains a selection of papers from the International Conference on Urban Studies (ICUS 2017) and is a bi-annual periodical publication containing articles on urban cultural studies based on the international conference organized by the Faculty of Humanities at the Universitas Airlangga, Indonesia. This publication contains studies on issues that become phenomena in urban life, including linguistics, literary, identity, gender, architecture, media, locality, globalization, the dynamics of urban society and culture, and urban history