Tag: bots

Bot protype – The cheatBot

s1690803/ / Weekly task

As you read in my last post I was debating myself about what kind of bot would “build”. After some thoughts, I have decided to go for the grammar helper  – The cheatBot. I have to confess that I would like to have had a much better idea, more original, but this is what I have :).

I am currently not teaching, and my last job was as a Spanish teacher as a second language, so I used this experience to get inspired and thinking about what I would have liked to have at my disposal when I was teaching. The context then is a bot that would be used by adults, particularly professional adults that are studying Spanish for their personal life or to work. All of them feel comfortable using technology and have smartphones. Class is small, no more than 15 students and all of them are quite motivated to learn (ideal class!), however, classes are late in the day, after their work and the class needs to be dynamic, useful and playful in order to get their attention.

The bot I am imaging would solve small questions about Spanish grammar. For example, when a student gets stuck expressing (oral or writing) a sentence because doesn’t know if a verb is regular or irregular. Or maybe the student wants to check the conjugation of a specific verb. Maybe wants some examples of how the conjugation is being used or wants a quick evaluation of a sentence that they have produced. The bot will give a quick answer and the student will not have the need to ask the question to the general class. Obviously, the chatbot can be used when the student is by themself.

The impact in the role’s teacher is that the class can be focused on general matters, and not specific and individual questions. That way, the teacher can spend the time in class in group activities that involve conversations or listenings. The teacher is able to invest time answering a more complex question. Solving problems that require a further explanation that just a grammar check. (I am imagining explaining the different cases of irregular verbs, or why in Spanish we have to verbs to express “to be”).  That way, the student can solve easy/quick questions with the bot and prioritise the class to solve difficult challenges.

I understand that the student can get this piece of information from different resources, a grammar book, or asking Google directly. However, by using the specific bot that teacher has created (or at least helped to design and create) students and teacher are also having contact. By using this bot the teacher guaranteed the veracity and reliability of the resource that student is checking, and if there is an error/mistake we could say that is “teacher’s fault”. As a student, sometimes, we get lost in the vastness of the internet. There is so much information and resources to check that one can get lost. having this chatbot a student can feel secure that the answer is verified and curated by the teacher and they can rely on it. Teacher and students must trust in it and probably here is where we see the ethical implications. It is necessary to establishing transparency in the bot’s purpose.

So, peoeple are really following bots, eh?

s1690803/ / Is that the future?, Trying tools, Weekly task

Have to admit that I was quite surprised to see that we should spend some time investigating bots as a teaching tool, I didn’t find the connection at the first, or second thought. Actually, I was surprised that bots are a hot topic still. Even my husband co-founded a start-up based on messaging and chatbots, I never thought bots could be used for people or helping in education. (I know, I know… ignorant alert!)

Until this week, I was not following bot on Twitter, for example, and I was not conscious of using it as a useful tool. Now, I would say that see their potential to encourage learning. I discovered that many museums are using Twitter bots to promote their collections. I can see how this can help people with limited resources and time to know and explore museum objects without leaving you home. Considering how is the world right now, that is very interesting…

But bots are not only useful when we have limited access to hove physically to the museums, for example. They can also play an interesting role when teachers want to introduce a topic, motivate students, and let them get familiar with a subject.  Teachers can use it to introduce a future cultural visit. Using it to introduce new exhibitions related to the topic they are talking about in class, or maybe to spark interest. It was not on my to-do list, but after finding the MNAC (Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya) and checking some of their twits, I am looking forward to going.

As I have exposed, I see some interesting uses of having bots in class, but don’t think I am seeing all the potentiality of them… Are bots a basic AI that could substitute or at least transform the task of a teacher? Difficult to see that. I can imagine a chatbot that gives mathematical problems that students need to solve, or maybe a history bot that explains important facts. Maybe a foreign language bot that helps with grammar? After this first week, I definitely can project some opportunities of using bots when teaching. However, for me, this is so far from having a robot or automated teacher.

On the other hand, when I think about bots (or simple AI/robots) in education, I cannot stop myself from connecting the thoughts with collecting data and data analysis.  At the end of the day, AI or an algorithm is using information stored in a specific database. Can we trust the data bots are using? If we begin to trust bots, without fact-checking, there is the potential risk for malicious misuse of information from those with the capability, and desire, to hack official information. We assume that teachers have some bias, but we also trust that if a teacher is in front of a class it is because they passed a trustful test (maybe an interview, exams, recognition from people of the community…). As a society, we have established some mechanisms of quality, control, and trust. Obviously, we can challenge them and question their utility and how they are formulated, but still, there is some QA process there. What is the control for bots? Why we should trust them? or what can be the protocols to make them more trustworthy?