Beyond Robotic Wastelands of Time: Abandoned Pedagogical Agents and New Pedalled Pedagogies

Chatbots, known as pedagogical agents in educational settings, have a long history of use,
beginning with Alan Turing’s work. Since then online chatbots have become embedded into the
fabric of technology. Yet understandings of these technologies are inchoate and often untheorised.
Integration of chatbots into educational settings over the past five years suggests an increase in
interest in the ways in which chatbots might be adopted and adapted for teaching and learning.
This article draws on historical literature and theories that to date have largely been ignored in
order to (re)contextualise two studies that used responsive evaluation to examine the use of
pedagogical agents in education. Findings suggest that emotional interactions with pedagogical
agents are intrinsic to a user’s sense of trust, and that truthfulness, personalisation and emotional
engagement are vital when using pedagogical agents to enhance online learning. Such findings need
to be considered in the light of ways in which notions of learning are being redefined in the
academy and the extent to which new literacies and new technologies are being pedalled as
pedagogies in ways that undermine what higher education is, is for, and what learning means.