Abstract:

Typically, in an online course class, the monotony at some point might arrive. Naturally, in a classical room, the words emphasis may be amplified in a pleasant manner by the echo capacities of that room. This is not the case when you’re talking to a microphone, and by contrary, in this situation, un unpleasant microphony might appear if some people from the audience have the microphones opened and to closely to their speakers. No matter what you do (presenting a PowerPoint slide, drawing on a whiteboard, drawing/writing using another software) your voice could sound too boring for the students.

Trying to create an animated movie to present to the audience, might be a good alternative to fight with the monotony, but again has the same disadvantage; your voice that is pretty much the same. Of course, the next thought might be heading to a special software that can change your voice. This could be a pretty good solution, but you or your audience might perceive this voice as being too “robotic”.

Another alternative might be to have 2 professors presenting that course, like in television with 2 presenters in the news studio, but typically there is just one single professor assigned for a course class and only for the labs might be assigned 2 assistants.

In conclusion, the audience would love to have 2 or 3 presenters like in a tv show, but the management of that school will strongly disagree to pay 2 or 3 persons for the same job. Apparently, looks like there is no feasible solution to this problem.

This paper wants to give a solution for the above-mentioned situation. It will present a research, done among the faculty’s students to highlight the main causes that can lead to a poor involvement of the students in an online course class and the perception of the students regarding the ingenious idea to use 2 virtual assistants (2 virtual characters and/or 2 virtual voices that would sound exactly like a human being) involved in an animated movie or presenting definitions, situations and even putting live questions to the audience. Before answering to the research questionnaire, the students will be given a short demo video in which will be simulated the same course class in both ways (the classical way and the one involving the virtual assistants), so that they can make a real comparison between the 2 approaches and can then provide a real feedback.

Keywords:

Virtual assistants, modern education, animated movies, students’ involvement.