What Are Chatbots and How Are They Used in Education?


SOURCE: OBSERVATORY.TEC.MX
FEB 14, 2022

Communication technologies have advanced by leaps and bounds in the last decade. In the case of online conversations, new tools have emerged to optimize dialogue with users and customer service. These resources created in the commercial fields have taken the leap to also improve the educational experience. One of these creations is the chatbot, which will be the main topic of our next webinar.

Next Tuesday, February 22, at 4:00 PM (Mexico City time), we will have a new webinar program entitled "Chatbots in Education: Humans Communicating with Robots." Professor Reyna Martinez will join us to explain how chatbots went from being a specialty tool for marketers to a mass communication platform applicable in education. To better understand the discussion during the broadcast, viewers might first want to have explained: What is a chatbot?

Chatbots are programs that simulate or process a human conversation. They allow users to interact with digital devices substituting as a person. They are powered by Artificial Intelligence, pre-programmed rules, natural language processing, and machine learning. These drivers work together to provide the chatbot with the ability to offer automated and accurate responses to questions and requests from people interacting with them.

Initially, chatbots were created to deliver fast and efficient service to customers with frequently asked questions, freeing human agents to address customers' more complex and specific problems. Eventually, chatbots learned from users' language and content patterns. Nowadays, they are used for higher purposes, such as education. How can educators leverage the features of chatbots for didactic purposes?

Chatbots facilitate the delivery of educational material, reinforce content, and answer fundamental questions through automated conversation. They handle simple requests such as providing the class lesson bibliography or short and condensed data relevant to material reviewed in class. This frees the teacher from mundane and mechanical teaching tasks to guide the students to more contextual and profound understanding in their learning.

Professor Reyna Martinez has extensive experience in teaching at the upper high school level and projects where artificial intelligence technology and education intersect. In this webinar, she will explain the basic definitions of chatbots and how they work, and she will share examples of how they are used within the academic field. The webinar will be conducted in Spanish, but non-Spanish speakers seeking to know more about the educational applications of chatbots can find the following recommended texts in English at Google Scholar and Springer Open.

Have you heard about chatbots? Have you been to educational institutions that use them? What has been your experience with them? If you are a teacher, do you lighten the teaching load by letting chatbots handle simple tasks? If you are a student, have chatbots helped your learning by resolving questions or clarifying? What is your position regarding using artificial intelligence in education? Let us know in the comments.

Translation by Daniel Wetta

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