Conference ICL2010 September 15 -17, 2010 Hasselt, Belgium Realizing Intelligent Pedagogical Agents in Immersive Virtual Learning Environments Mohamed Soliman 1 , Christian Guetl 2 1 Math and Computer Department, Qatar University, 2 Institute for Information Systems and Computer Media, Graz University of Technology Key words: Intelligent Pedagogical Agents, Immersive Virtual Learning Environments, Virtual Reality for Learning Abstract: While Learners enjoy the sense of presence and rich visualization in 3D Immersive Virtual Learning Environments, they require more interactivity and pedagogical guidance. Intelligent Pedagogical Agents, IPAs, which are autonomous and intelligent software entities can provide such demands if they are employed in the VLE. They provide interactivity (dialogues), increase motivation and engagement, support collaborative functions, provide tutorial support, and more. This paper discusses those aspects with educational grounds. Since our target is to practically employing IPAs in the Immersive VLE, the paper reviews the required elements of such integration, visits supporting models, architectures and standards. It discusses state of the art of IPA and Immersive VLE with future perspectives of such integration. 1 Background Immersive Virtual Learning Environments provide a step ahead for engaging learners electronically. In addition to the virtual reality benefits for learning, they offer the sense of presence to the learner and put the social learning principles in action. They improve collaborative functions and support active exploration and authentic learning experiences. Recently there has been worldwide attention to employing Second Life [1] and Wonderland [2] for education. Second Life uses Linden Scripting Language (LSL) that is C like to create 3D interactive content. LSL describes objects in the virtual world and it is event-driven meaning that an object event will trigger execution of an LSL script. Wonderland is a client server pure Java-based environment. It allows importing X3D standard objects, [3][4]. Task advice, pedagogical guidance, and environment-learner verbal and non verbal interaction are essential to such environments. Intelligent Pedagogical Agents are autonomous software entities that can act on behalf or with the learner for a pedagogical objective. They are also equipped with intelligence capabilities taken from distributed AI [5] and thus can complement the VLE for effective learning experience. In research, IPAs took various forms from simple characters to embodied agents and avatars. The use of such agents have been used for the purpose of improving learner interactivity and engagement by providing several functions such as expressing emotions, conducting dialogues with the learner, tracking learner actions and states, and providing learning feedback. Several IPA structures have been provided and studied in [6]. 1(7) ICL 2010 Proceedings – Page 909