eCIRCUS - Education through Characters with Emotional Intelligence and Role-playing Capabilities that Understand Social Interaction
- Strategic objective: Technology-enhanced Learning
- Project type: Specific targeted research project (STREP)
- Start date: 1 March 2006
- Duration: 24 months
- EU funding: 2 600 000
- Number of partners: 9
- Project coordinator: Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK
- Contact: Prof. Ruth Aylett
eCIRCUS will investigate the efficiency of role-play, narrative engagement and empathy on cognitive and emotional learning processes in complex social situations.
eCIRCUS will develop a new approach in the use of ICT to support social and emotional learning. This will be achieved through virtual role-play with synthetic characters that establish credible and empathic relations with the learners.
To attain this, eCIRCUS investigates educational role-play using autonomous synthetic characters and involving the child through affective engagement, including the use of standard and highly innovative interaction mechanisms.
The project will introduce novel conceptual models and innovative technology to support learning through role-play and affective engagement for personal and social education involving complex social situations. It will do this by taking modern theories of narrative and role-play from psychology and by implementing them in affectively driven autonomous graphically embodied agents - actors with attitude.
This technology will be delivered through a virtual learning environment for emotional and social learning, developed through two showcases: one on anti-bullying education and one on intercultural empathy. eCIRCUS will use a classroom-based, curriculum-focused participatory design approach and a comprehensive evaluation framework, including a longitudinal study, to assess impact and effectiveness.
The dissemination of results from this project could have a significant impact on approaches to social and emotional learning; improving quality and innovation in learning technologies; determining approaches to combat bullying and support conflict resolution; and potentially improving the quality of life in European schools.