Story-Based Learning Environments

Training and education using fictional and non-fictional scenarios

1. Overview

As part of the mission of ICT to revolutionize learning through the development of interactive digital media, I have led several projects that focus on the role of story. Story-based learning environments are learn-by-doing environments where the experiences of learners are driven by the events of stories, either fictional or non-fictional.

Most of these projects have focused on the training needs of the U.S. Army, primarily for leadership development and command preparation. The philosophy behind story-driven learning environments is best expressed in the following article.

• Gordon, A. (2009) Story-Based Learning Environments. In Nicholson, D., Schmorrow, D., & Cohn, J. (eds.) The PSI Handbook of Virtual Environments for Training and Education: Developments for the Military and Beyond, Volume 2: Components and Training Technologies. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International. info

2. UrbanSim (2009 - present)

The ICT UrbanSim project is a PC-based, story-driven, virtual training application to better prepare Army commanders for exercising counterinsurgency and stability operations in a complex operational environment.

• Wansbury, T., Hart, J., Gordon, A., and Wilkinson, J. (2010) UrbanSim: Training Adaptable Leaders in the Art of Battle Command. Proceedings of the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation, and Education Conference (I/ITSEC), Orlando, FL, November 29 - December 2, 2010. pdf
• McAlinden, R., Gordon, A., Lane, H. C., and Pynadath, D. (2009) UrbanSim: A Game-based Simulation for Counterinsurgency and Stability-focused Operations. Workshop on Intelligent Educational Games, 14th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, Brighton, England, July 7, 2009. pdf
• McAlinden, R., Durlach, P., Lane, H., Gordon, A., and Hart, J. (2008) UrbanSim: A game-based instructional package for conducting counterinsurgency operations. Proceedings of the 26th Army Science Conference, Orlando, FL, December 1-4, 2008. pdf

3. Fourth Frame Forums (2006 - 2009)

The Fourth Frame Forums project explored the use of interactive comics for online, collaborative learning. Traditional four panel comics strips were authored and embedded in modified web forums, where learners added new threads to the forum by filling in the empty dialogue bubble in the fourth frame of the comic, indicating what they would say in the given situations. The Fourth Frame Forums application was deployed in support of leadership development for police officers at the academy of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in 2009. The following paper recieved the best short paper award at the 2006 ACM Multimedia conference.

• Gordon, A. (2006) Fourth Frame Forums: Interactive Comics for Collaborative Learning. Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM 2006), October 23-27, Santa Barbara, CA. pdf

4. Leaders (2003-2004)

The ICT Leaders project was a PC-based virtual training application in support of leadership development for junior Army officers. Trainees played the role of a company commander running security operations for a food distribution operation in Afghanistan. Dialogue with virtual characters was supported using a natural lanugage (textual) interface, and simulation events were driven by a branching storyline.

• Iuppa, N., Weltman, G. and Gordon, A. (2004) Bringing Hollywood Storytelling Techniques to Branching Storylines for Training Applications, Proceedings of the Third International Conference for Narrative and Interactive Learning Environments. August 10-13, 2004. Edinburgh, Scotland. pdf
• Gordon, A., van Lent, M., van Velsen, M., Carpenter, M., and Jhala, A. (2004) Branching Storylines in Virtual Reality Environments for Leadership Development. Proceedings of the Sixteenth Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference (IAAI-04), July 25-29, San Jose, CA. Menlo Park, CA: AAAI Press. pdf
• Gordon, A. (2004) Authoring Branching Storylines for Training Applications. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS-04). Santa Monica, CA, June 22-26. pdf

5. Army Excellence in Leadership (2002 - 2005)

The ICT Army Excellence in Leadership (AXL) project focuses on excellerating leadership development through case-method teaching, where fictional scenarios are presented as Hollywood-produced short films that trainees analyze and discuss with system interactions and interviews with scenario characters.

• Hill, R., Kim, J., Gordon, A., Traum, D., Gandhe, S., King, S., Lavis, S., Rocher, S., and Zbylut, M. (2006) AXL.Net: Web-enabled Case Method Instruction for Accelerating Tacit Knowledge Acquisition in Leaders. Proceedings of the 25th Army Science Conference, November 27-30, 2006, Orlando, FL. pdf
• Gandhe, S., Gordon, A., and Traum, D. (2006) Improving question-answering with linking dialogues. 2006 International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, Sydney, Australia, Jan 29 - Feb 1, 2006. pdf
• Gordon, A. (2005) The Fictionalization of Lessons Learned. Guest Editorial for Media Impact Column, IEEE Multimedia 12(4):12-14. pdf
• Hill, R., Gordon, A., and Kim, J. (2004) Learning the lessons of leadership experience: Tools for interactive case method analysis. Proceedings of the 24th Army Science Conference, Orlando Florida. pdf
• Gandhe, S., Gordon, A., Leuski, A., Traum, D., and Oard, D. (2004) First steps toward linking dialogues: Mediating between free-text questions and pre-recorded video answers. Proceedings of the 24th Army Science Conference, Orlando Florida. pdf
• Hill, R., Douglas, J., Gordon, A., Pighin, F., and van Velsen, M. (2003) Guided Conversations about Leadership: Mentoring with Movies and Interactive Characters. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference (IAAI-03) August 12-14, 2003, Acapulco, Mexico. Menlo Park, CA: AAAI Press. pdf

6. Advanced Leadership Training Simulation (2001-2003)

The ICT Advanced Leadership Training Simulation (ALTSIM) project aimed to support leadership development for Army commanders and their staff via a multi-player virtual training application, where simulation events were controlled by an underlying story representation and presented using rich multi-media resources. This project was partnership between ICT and Paramount Pictures.

• Gordon, A. and Iuppa, N. (2003) Experience Management Using Storyline Adaptation Strategies. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Technologies for Digital Storytelling and Entertainment, Darmstadt, Germany, March 24-26, 2003. pdf

Some technologies related to this project were patented.

• Method and apparatus for advanced leadership training simulation and gaming applications. United States Patent 7155158, Issued December 26, 2006. Inventors: Nicholas V. Iuppa, Andrew S. Gordon. Assignees: University of Southern California, ALTSIM, Inc. info

7. Contact

For information about these projects, please contact Andrew S. Gordon (gordon @ ict.usc.edu) of the USC Institute for Creative Technologies.