Journal 14

The other day in class we discussed avatars and their new affect on distance learning. The thought of having a teacher being exactly what I want and always doing the actions and voice tones that I would like seems unbelieveable to me. I don't come to class each day with the same mind-set; some days I am tired, some days I am wide awake, some days I have so many things on my mind, and some days I may not have anything on my mind. It would be very interesting if they avatar teacher would be able to read my mood and adjust accordingly, yet, if the avatar were able to do that, wouldn't it be more like an actual person rather than a piece of technology? I don't see how it is possible for a piece of technology, such as the avatar teacher, to have such a wide range of abilities that it would be able to adjust to your avatars mood that could change by the minute. If the student "comes into class" in one mood and the avatar teacher adjusts to that mood, will the avatar be able to also adjust if the mood of the student changes throughout the class? Or for example, say the student is very tired once they arrive, but the teacher would like to wake them up, will the teacher be able to speak at a louder to tone to wake up the student just by reading whether they are tired or not? And once the student wakes up, will the teacher be able to take their tone of voice back to a regular tone? The idea of having such technologies in distance learning that you can have the exact teacher that you want to learn seems farfetched. I also enjoy having to adjust and learn different ways with different teachers, so if I am constantly being taught only my ideal way of learning, how will I ever learn if thrown into an actual classroom with a different style of teaching?