Introduction to the Special Articles in the Fall and Winter Issues

Included are articles on integrated systems such as virtual humans, an intelligent textbook, and a game-based learning environment as well as technology-focused components such as student models and data mining. This issue concludes with an article summarizing the contemporary and emerging challenges at the intersection of AI and education. Everyone recognizes the need to improve teacher effectiveness, to improve student engagement, and to create a twenty-first century education system that maximizes potential of every student. The challenges that must be addressed to make these improvements greatly exceed the scope of any single approach, whether it is educational technology, improved teacher training and better after school programs, and so on. In past research, AI -- with its inextricable links to cognitive science, psychology, and mathematics -- has proven a close fit for many of these challenging educational problems.