Fourth frame forums: interactive comics for collaborative learning

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we describe Fourth Frame Forums, an application that combines traditional four-frame comic strips with online web-based discussion forums. In this application, users are presented with a four-frame comic strip where the last dialogue balloon of the fourth frame is left blank. By typing a statement into this dialogue balloon, the user creates a new discussion thread in the forum, where the user's dialogue choice can be critiqued and discussed by other users of the forum. We argue that Fourth Frame Forums provide an elegant and cost-effective solution for online education and training environments for communities of learners. We provide examples from the domain of US Army leadership development, and compare Fourth Frame Forums to alternative methods of story-directed simulation and training.

REFERENCES

• 1: Bloom, B. S. 1984. The 2-Sigma problem: The search for methods of group instruction as effective as one-to-one tutoring. Educational Researcher 13:3--16.
• 2: Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. 1989. Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Research 18:32--42.
• 3: Andrew S. Gordon, Authoring branching storylines for training applications, Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Learning sciences, p.230-237, June 22-26, 2004, Santa Monica, California
• 4: Johnson, W. L., Marsella, S., & Vilhialmsson, H. 2004. The DARWARS Tactical Language Training System. Proceedings of the 2004 Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation & Education Conference (I/ITSEC). Orando, FL.
• 5: Korris, J. 2004. Full Spectrum Warrior: How the Institute for Creative Technologies Built a Cognitive Training Tool for the XBox. Proceedings of the 24th Army Science Conference. Orlando, Fl.
• 6: David Kurlander , Tim Skelly , David Salesin, Comic Chat, Proceedings of the 23rd annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.225-236, August 1996 [doi>10.1145/237170.237260]
• 7: McCloud, S. 1993. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
• 8: Lawrence J. Najjar, Multimedia information and learning, Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, v.5 n.2, p.129-150, 1996
• 9: Schank, R. C. & Abelson, R. P. 1995. Knowledge and Memory: the Real Story. In Robert S. Wyer, editor, Knowledge and Memory: the Real Story. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 1--85.
• 10: Sternberg, R., Forsythe, G., Hedlund, J., Horvath, J., Wagner, R., Williams, W., Snook, S., and Grigorenko, E., 2000. Practical Intelligence in Everyday Life, New York: Cambridge University Press.
• 11: William Swartout , Jonathan Gratch , Randall W. Hill , Eduard Hovy , Stacy Marsella , Jeff Rickel , David Traum, Toward virtual humans, AI Magazine, v.27 n.2, p.96-108, July 2006

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS
      H.4.3 Communications Applications
          Subjects: Bulletin boards

General Terms:
Human Factors

Keywords:
collaborative learning, comics, discussion forums