Animating Web Lectures with Agent Technology

About four years ago I decided that I wanted to put my lectures on the Internet. I had three motivations for doing so. One, I love to tinker with computer technology and putting my lectures on the Net sounded like an ideal way to satisfy this love.  Two, I write textbooks (on International Business Law, Public International Law, and Cyberlaw) and I though that online lectures would make excellent support materials for them. Three, I felt that my students would find the lectures to be useful learning tools.

I had already done the easy things. I had created a Web site, posted my lecture notes, and set up pages for administering my courses (that is, I had pages for syllabuses, for course schedules and assignments, and for posting grades). I had also created an online dictionary and directory (the International Law Dictionary and Directory) which has the links that my students need to find online materials relating to my courses. 
 

The "virtual" courses that I found on the Web, for all practical purposes, were little more than old-fashioned correspondence courses. The great majority of course sites had written lectures that students were simply instructed to print out and read. This did not impress me. 

The most enjoyable part of teaching, for me, is the tutorial session.  In the context of teaching the law, the tutorial  uses the Socratic method to discuss cases. I enjoy it because it keeps me on my toes "arguing" with students. And students enjoy this "friendly arguing" if they understand the legal rules being discussed. 

But I was unable to find anyone else who had already put their lectures on the Web.

The Pros and Cons of Streaming Video

My first thought was to take advantage of streaming video technology. The technology is available from Apple, Real Video Microsoft, and others. I got a video camera and microphone for my computer and I downloaded the software for compressing the audio-video signal into a video stream. 

There are other problems. Synchronizing the pages that appear behind the streaming video box is difficult. Good audio demands good recording equipment. ("How much can I afford on a budget of zero dollars and zero cents?") So does good video. A single CD may not hold an entire lecture if you want to make the lectures available off-line. Etc., etc.

After several frustrating months and only one lecture online I gave up.

Agent Technology

I gave up on streaming video when I came across a different technology that I thought would work better. I first saw it used as a desktop application on an Information System colleague's desktop. According to the Microsoft Agent Web page, Agent is "a set of programmable software services that supports the presentation of interactive animated characters within the Microsoft Windows interface." In plain English, it is a software program that places animated cartoon characters inside any Microsoft Windows product (including the Internet Explorer browser and the Windows desktop on PC computers) and allows them to read a script out loud, gesture, and bring up Web or other pages as background images.

If you haven't already seen the Microsoft Agent in action, you might want to watch an excerpt from one of my lectures. Make sure you are online with Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. (Nothing will happen if you are using Netscape's Communicator.) Click on the link below.  The first time you do so, the lecture file will ask your computer if the Agent programs are installed. If it is not, the programs will automatically install. (Please answer "yes" each time you are asked by Microsoft if you can install the software on your computer.)  This will take a few minutes depending on the speed of your Internet connection. Here's the link:

• Introduction to Ray August's Law of Business Organization
   

If you would rather try out Microsoft's own demonstration page click on the following link:

• Try out Microsoft Agent from Microsoft
   

Merlin

• Call up an animated character.
• Give the character speech.
• Direct the character's gestures.
• Move the character around the page.
• Call up pages behind the character (which can be pages from any Web site on the Internet).

Advantages of Agent Technology

In comparison to streaming video, there are substantial advantages to using Agent technology to create animate audio-video lectures.  First, no special equipment is needed.  No cameras; no microphones; no recording studios.  The software is easy to use, and unless it being used for commercial purposes, it is available at no cost from Microsoft.

Agent technology uses synthesized voices — there are about a dozen or so to choose from — and a text-to-speech engine for translating speech into the spoken voice.   That is, a lecture is created by writing a script, including directions for voice inflections and volume, and the text-to-speech engine then reads the script and directs the character to speak the words.  The character's lips, by the way, are synchronized to move similarly to natural lip movements so that the character truly appears to be speaking.

The script also provides directions as to where the character appears on the screen, the gestures it makes, and the slides that are brought up behind it as background.  This is another advantage over streaming video.  The "talking head" in a streaming video box is pretty well stuck in one spot on the screen.  An Agent character, by comparison, can move around the screen, point to, and interact with the background materials on the screen.
 

Because agent technology uses text-to-speech synthesis, the size of the files one needs to record a lecture are incredibly small. Instead of many, many megabytes for a streaming video file, the text file for a one hour lecture is only about 40 kilobytes.
 

Most important, the Agent script and background files are easily editable. Once they are created, it only takes a few minutes using a text or HTML editor to makes changes.  This means that updating lectures is a snap.  Parts of a lecture that are outdated can be deleted and new material inserted without affecting the old material.  There are no problems with "splicing-in" new video or audio.  The changes are seamless.

Effectiveness of Animated Lectures

The big question, of course, is how effective are animated audio-video lectures. (I have to admit that I was a little apprehensive when I began using them.) I surveyed the 59 students who took my online courses in the Spring of 2000 to ask them what they thought of the lectures. Here are their responses:

Question 1: How many of the lectures did you watch?

Questions 2: Do you prefer animated online courses to other online courses you have had?

Overall, I was quite delighted with these result. All 59 students responded to the first question. Two-third of them watched all or most of the lectures.  Those who watched the most also identified themselves as being the students who did the best in the courses. Those who did not watch the lectures did the poorest. 

Most importantly, the 43 that responded to the second question  overwhelmingly preferred the animated lecture courses to other online courses they had taken.

Programming Microsoft Agent

It is really not difficult to use the Microsoft Agent characters to create online lectures. The simplest way to do so is to use the Microsoft Agent Scripting Helper. This is an inexpensive ($25.00) shareware program available from BellCraft Technologies that lets you generate a script without doing any programming. You simply choose the gestures you want your character to use, type in the accompanying script, and save the file. To visit the Microsoft Agent Scripting Helper home page, click on the following link:

• MASH home page

Alternatively, if you are familiar with programming yourself and would rather not use an editor, I have written a lecture on how to program Microsoft Agent using Visual Basic Script that Merlin the Magician narrates. Click on the following link to view it:

• How to Use Microsoft Agent to Create Online Lectures

Be aware that if you decide to program a character yourself, it will take about six hours to create a script that will cover the same material that you would go over in a one hour classroom lecture. Using the Microsoft Agent Scripting Helper it will take about five hours. The script itself goes together fairly quickly. It is the creation of the background pages (the lecture slides) that are the most time consuming. However, if you already have Power Point or other similar slides, these can be easily converted to HTML pages that can be used as background, saving an appreciable amount of time.
 

Choice of Characters

There are over 250 characters that are available. A list of them is maintained by an online Agent support site known as "the Agentry." Click on the following link to view the list:

• Agentry List of Agent Characters

If you don't find a character you like, you can create your own using Microsoft's character editor. Alternatively, the Agentry site maintains a list of individuals and organizations that will create custom Agent characters. Click on the following link to get that list:

• List of Agent Character Creators

I am in the process of having myself animated as a character. The animation should be done soon and I hope to use the character to narrate my online lectures beginning in January of 2001.

What Next?

The Agent software has the capability of making Agent characters interactive.  That is, a character can listen for and react to spoken or written requests for information or answers to questions. 

My plans are to make use of this capability once I get all of my lectures online. So, even though I enjoy the tutorials I hold for my students, I hope to to put the turorials online as well. Once they are online, the Agent character will be able to help students identify legal issues, rules, and arguments without my intervention.  

Of course, this will leave me with little to do but update the scripts every now and then, and maybe grade a few papers. All of this can be done remotely, of course. So if you happen to see me in the South of France in a few years, do say hello.

© 2000 by Ray August.  All rights reserved.