Model for supporting awareness in the CSCL ALLEGRO environment through a blackboard architecture

Abstract

This paper is aimed at describing collaborative activities, the awareness process and blackboard architecture used within the ALLEGRO system, a multi-agent learning and teaching environment which has included artificial intelligence mechanisms (instructional planning (IP), cased-based reasoning (CBR), multi-agent systems (MAS), intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) and computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL)). The proposed model of awareness promotes communication, collaboration and coordination in CSCL ALLEGRO. MAS-CommonKADS methodology was applied for building the Multi-Agent system. ALLEGRO based its instructional approach on the following three pedagogical paradigms: conductive behavior, cognitive mechanisms (distributed cognition and problem-based learning) and social-historical theory. The system was validated via several case studies regarding the graphical digital domain for postgraduate architectural studies. The proposed awareness model lets students develop important skills such as conscious behavior, communication, collaboration and coordination in the CSCL component of the ALLEGRO system. This model facilitates students acquiring a perception of what others are doing inside the CSCL, thereby using such knowledge for interacting with the environment and developing leading to expressing and exchanging ideas and opinions with other students, transforming the class into an open virtual forum for reflection, proactive interaction and a critical space for exchanging ideas. The proposed instructional model is a valuable resource from the technological and pedagogical point of view as different theories are integrated, some of them conflicting with others.