A pedagogical approach that has proven effective in face-to-face instruction is generally referred to as Socratic Questioning. This approach, in its original form, is based on conversation-oriented questioning, exploration, inquiry and discovery process, with a high degree of interaction and involvement between the learner and the Socratic questioner. This paper examines the effectiveness of adopting a Socratic animated agent (designed using Window sLive Agent - a chat interface with artificial intelligence capabilities) in building students’ understanding of Newton’s Laws in the science classes of a Singapore secondary school. The study will highlight the importance of considering the pedagogical approach on which the technology is based - by showing how the choice of a Socratic-like questioning approach as the pedagogical style of an animated agent gives rise to a relationship that makes technology and pedagogy fit together well.