Chatbots for Education: Using and Examples from EdTech Leaders

You get plenty of documentation and step-by-step instructions for building your chatbots. It has a straightforward interface, so even beginners can easily make and deploy bots. You can use the content blocks, which are sections of content for an even quicker building of your bot. Learn how to install Tidio on your website in just a few minutes, and check out how a dog accessories store doubled its sales with Tidio chatbots. Contrary to popular belief, AI chatbot technology doesn’t only help big brands. Such risks have the potential to damage brand loyalty and customer trust, ultimately sabotaging both the top line and the bottom line, while creating significant externalities on a human level.

This work was supported by the Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation, the Digital Development Agency (DDA), and the CNRST of Morocco (Al-Khawarizmi program, Project 22). Authors are thankful to all the teaching staff from the Regional Center for Education and Training Professions of Souss Massa (CRMEF-SM) for their help in the evaluation, and all of the participants who took part in this Chat GPT study. There is also a bias towards empirically evaluated articles as we only selected articles that have an empirical evaluation, such as experiments, evaluation studies, etc. Further, we only analyzed the most recent articles when many articles discussed the same concept by the same researchers. This limitation was necessary to allow us to practically begin the analysis of articles, which took several months.

Juji automatically aggregates and analyzes demographics data and visualizes the summary. So you can get a quick glance on where users came from and when they interacted with the chatbot. Use Juji API to integrate a chatbot with an learning platform or a learning app. I should clarify that d.bot — named https://chat.openai.com/ after its home base, the d.school — is just one member of my bottery (‘bottery’ is a neologism to refer to a group of bots, like a pack of wolves, or a flock of birds). Over the past year I’ve designed several chatbots that serve different purposes and also have different voices and personalities.

Then the motivational agent reacts to the answer with varying emotions, including empathy and approval, to motivate students. Similarly, the chatbot in (Schouten et al., 2017) shows various reactionary emotions and motivates students with encouraging phrases such as “you have already achieved a lot today”. By far, the majority (20; 55.55%) of the presented chatbots play the role of a teaching agent, while 13 studies (36.11%) discussed chatbots that are peer agents. Only two studies used chatbots as teachable agents, and two studies used them as motivational agents. 63.88% (23) of the selected articles are conference papers, while 36.11% (13) were published in journals. Interestingly, 38.46% (5) of the journal articles were published recently in 2020.

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The My Friend Cayla doll was marketed as a line of 18-inch (46 cm) dolls which uses speech recognition technology in conjunction with an Android or iOS mobile app to recognize the child’s speech and have a conversation. Like the Hello Barbie doll, it attracted controversy due to vulnerabilities with the doll’s Bluetooth stack and its use of data collected from the child’s speech. The bots usually appear as one of the user’s contacts, but can sometimes act as participants in a group chat.

You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. Today chatbots can understand natural language, respond to user input, and provide feedback in the form of text or audio (text-based and voice-enabled). They can offer learners the possibility to engage in simulated conversational interactions in a non-judgmental environment (El Shazly, 2021; Skjuve et al., 2021). For these reasons, chatbots are being increasingly used as virtual tutors to facilitate the development of language skills and communicative competence in the target language (Huang et al., 2022; Hwang & Chang, 2021; Zhang et al., 2023).

Beyond gender and form of the bot, the survey revealed many open questions in the growing field of human-robot interaction (HRI). Most articles (13; 36.11%) used an experiment to establish the validity of the used approach, while 10 articles (27.77%) used an evaluation study to validate the usefulness and usability of their approach. The remaining articles used a questionnaire (10; 27.7%) and a focus group (3; 8.22%) as their evaluation methods.

5 RQ5 – What are the principles used to guide the design of the educational chatbots?

Another early example of a chatbot was PARRY, implemented in 1972 by psychiatrist Kenneth Colby at Stanford University (Colby, 1981). PARRY was a chatbot designed to simulate a paranoid patient with schizophrenia. It engaged in text-based conversations and demonstrated the ability to exhibit delusional behavior, offering insights into natural language processing and AI. Later in 2001 ActiveBuddy, Inc. developed the chatbot SmarterChild that operated on instant messaging platforms such as AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger (Hoffer et al., 2001). SmarterChild was a chatbot that could carry on conversations with users about a variety of topics.

To sum up, Table 2 shows some gaps that this study aims at bridging to reflect on educational chatbots in the literature. Here chatbots play an important role, as they can track progress, ensuring continuous interaction through personalized content and suggestions. Since pupils seek dynamic learning opportunities, such tools facilitate student engagement by imitating social media and instant messaging channels. Drawing from extensive systematic literature reviews, as summarized in Table 1, AI chatbots possess the potential to profoundly influence diverse aspects of education. However, it is essential to address concerns regarding the irrational use of technology and the challenges that education systems encounter while striving to harness its capacity and make the best use of it.

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This no-code chatbot platform helps you with qualified lead generation by deploying a bot, asking questions, and automatically passing the lead to the sales team for a follow-up. You can use the mobile invitations to create mobile-specific rules, customize design, and features. The chatbot platform comes with an SDK tool to put chats on iOS and Android apps. You can visualize statistics on several dashboards that facilitate the interpretation of the data. It can help you analyze your customers’ responses and improve the bot’s replies in the future. If you need an easy-to-use bot for your Facebook Messenger and Instagram customer support, then this chatbot provider is just for you.

• There’s a lot of fascinating research in the area of human-robot collaboration and human-robot teams.
• AI chatbots can be attentive to – and train on – students’ learning habits and areas of difficulty.
• In general, most desktop-based chatbots were built in or before 2013, probably because desktop-based systems are cumbersome to modern users as they must be downloaded and installed, need frequent updates, and are dependent on operating systems.
• Pérez et al. (2020) identified various technologies used to implement chatbots such as Dialogflow Footnote 4, FreeLing (Padró and Stanilovsky, 2012), and ChatFuel Footnote 5.
• The instruments were rated based on the Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) and administered using Google Forms for both groups.

Where else, learning performance was assessed based on the assessment of the project, which includes report, product, presentation, and peer-to-peer assessment. Therefore, it was hypothesized that using ECs could improve learning outcomes, and a quasi-experimental design comparing EC and traditional (CT) groups were facilitated, as suggested by Wang et al. (2021), to answer the following research questions. Conversely, it may provide an opportunity to promote mental health (Dekker et al., 2020) as it can be reflected as a ‘safe’ environment to make mistakes and learn (Winkler & Söllner, 2018). Furthermore, ECs can be operated to answer FAQs automatically, manage online assessments (Colace et al., 2018; Sandoval, 2018), and support peer-to-peer assessment (Pereira et al., 2019). For example, when using a chatbot to practice providing supportive language as an instructor, you might ask a chatbot “Please act as an anxious first-year college student from an under-represented minority coming into office hours for the first time” (Chen, 2023).

There are also many integrations available, such as Google Sheets, Shopify, MailChimp, Facebook Ad Campaign, etc. Handle conversations, manage tickets, and resolve issues quickly to improve your CSAT. Any software simulating human conversation, whether powered by traditional, rigid decision tree-style menu navigation or cutting-edge conversational AI, is a chatbot. Chatbots can be found across nearly any communication channel, from phone trees to social media to specific apps and websites.

The teacher candidates were guided on how to engage with the chatbots, including selecting different language levels, using varied sentence types, introducing typical errors, exploring voice options, and investigating the use of AR and other technologies if available. This assessment was aligned with the CHISM scale, which was completed in a post-survey. A minimum interaction of three hours per week with each AIC, or 48 h over a month across all AICs, was requested from each participant. Some studies have emphasized that interactions with AICs can seem detached and lack the human element (Rapp et al., 2021). Additionally, while AICs can handle a wide range of queries, they may struggle with complex language nuances, which could potentially lead to misunderstandings or incorrect language usage.

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Likewise, time spent answering repetitive queries (and the training that is required to make those answers uniformly consistent) is also costly. Many overseas enterprises offer the outsourcing of these functions, but doing so carries its own significant cost and reduces control over a brand’s interaction with its customers. To help illustrate the distinctions, imagine that a user is curious about tomorrow’s weather.

However, providing frequent quality feedback requires much time and effort from you and your teaching team. An AI chatbot might help you by giving students frequent, immediate, and adaptive feedback. For example, you might guide your students in using chatbots to get feedback on the structure of an essay or to find errors in a piece of programming code. Remember that you and your students should always critically examine feedback generated by chatbots. You can use generative AI chatbots to support teaching and learning in many ways.

For instance, Martha and Santoso (2019) discussed one aspect of the design (the chatbot’s visual appearance). This study focuses on the conceptual principles that led to the chatbot’s design. Roleplay enables users to hone their conversational abilities by engaging with virtual characters.

Student comments were systematically categorized into potential benefits and limitations following the template structure and then coded using a tree-structured code system, focusing on recurrent themes through frequency analysis. A chatbot, short for chatterbot, is a computer program that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to conduct a conversation via auditory or textual methods and interacts with humans in their natural languages. These interactions usually occur through websites, messaging applications, or mobile apps, where the bot is capable of simulating and maintaining human-like conversations and perform different tasks (Adamopoulou & Moussiades, 2020). Firstly, it aims to investigate the current knowledge and opinions of language teacher candidates regarding App-Integrated Chatbots (AICs). Secondly, it seeks to measure their level of satisfaction with four specific AICs after a 1-month intervention. Lastly, it aims to evaluate their perspectives on the potential advantages and drawbacks of AICs in language learning as future educators.

Incorporating AI chatbots in education offers several key advantages from students’ perspectives. AI-powered chatbots provide valuable homework and study assistance by offering detailed feedback on assignments, guiding students through complex problems, and providing step-by-step solutions. They also act as study companions, offering explanations and clarifications on various subjects.

Additionally, AICs today can also incorporate emerging technologies like AR and VR, and gamification elements, to enhance learner motivation and engagement (Kim et al., 2019). The proliferation of smartphones in the late 2000s led to the integration of educational chatbots into mobile applications. However, the initial models were basic, relying on a scripted question–answer format and not intended for meaningful practice beyond their specific subject area (Godwin-Jones, 2022). Since then, AI technology has significantly advanced and chatbots are now able to provide more comprehensive language learning support, such as conversational exchange, interactive activities, and multimedia content (Jung, 2019; Li et al., 2022). Chatbot technology has evolved rapidly over the last 60 years, partly thanks to modern advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) and the availability of Large Language Models (LLMs).

Almost all institutions aim to streamline their processes of updating and collecting data. By leveraging AI technology, colleges can efficiently gather and store information. Such optimization will eliminate student involvement in updating their details. As a rule, this advanced data collection system enhances administrative efficiency and enables institutions to use pupils’ information as necessary.

Chatbots may be better at tutoring certain subjects than others, so be sure to try it out first to assess the helpfulness of the responses. A chatbot is computer software that uses special algorithms or artificial intelligence (AI) to conduct conversations with people via text or voice input. Most chatbot platforms offer tools for developing and customizing chatbots suited for a specific customer base. IBM watsonx Assistant helps organizations provide better customer experiences with an AI chatbot that understands the language of the business, connects to existing customer care systems, and deploys anywhere with enterprise security and scalability. Watsonx Assistant automates repetitive tasks and uses machine learning to resolve customer support issues quickly and efficiently. The second dimension of the CHISM model, focusing on the Design Experience (DEX), underscores its critical role in fostering user engagement and satisfaction beyond the linguistic dimension.

One significant advantage of AI chatbots in education is their ability to provide personalized and engaging learning experiences. By tailoring their interactions to individual students’ needs and preferences, chatbots offer customized feedback and instructional support, ultimately enhancing student engagement and information retention. However, there are potential difficulties in fully replicating the human educator experience with chatbots. While they can provide customized instruction, chatbots may not match human instructors’ emotional support and mentorship. Understanding the importance of human engagement and expertise in education is crucial.

The selection of the four AICs, namely Mondly, Andy, John Bot, and Buddy.ai, was guided by specific criteria, including multiplatform compatibility, wide availability, and diverse functionalities such as the integration of different technologies. These AICs offered a wide range of options, such as catering to different English language proficiency levels, providing personalized feedback, adapting to individual learning progress, and incorporating other technologies (AR, VR) in some cases. The aim was not to compare the four AICs, but rather to present teacher candidates with a broad overview of these virtual tutors, providing a variety of options and examples. Qualitative data were collected through class discussions and assessment reports of the AICS following a template provided through the Moodle platform.

Prior research has not mentioned creativity as a learning outcome in EC studies. However, according to Pan et al. (2020), there is a positive relationship between creativity and the need for cognition as it also reflects individual innovation behavior. Likewise, it was deemed necessary due to the nature of the project, which involves design. Lastly, teamwork perception was defined as students’ perception of how well they performed as a team to achieve their learning goals. According to Hadjielias et al. (2021), the cognitive state of teams involved in digital innovations is usually affected by the task involved within the innovation stages. You can leverage the community to learn more and improve your chatbot functionality.

• AI systems enhance their responses through extensive learning from human interactions, akin to brain synchrony during cooperative tasks.
• Furthermore, as for constructive feedback, the outcomes for both groups were very similar as the critiques were mainly from the teammates and the instructor, and the ECs were not designed to critique the project task.
• To get the most from an organization’s existing data, enterprise-grade chatbots can be integrated with critical systems and orchestrate workflows inside and outside of a CRM system.
• The key difference is that Google Bard is trained on a dataset that includes text from the internet, while ChatGPT is trained on a dataset that includes text from books and articles.

For instance, researchers have enabled speech at conversational speeds for stroke victims using AI systems connected to brain activity recordings. Future applications may include businesses using non-invasive BCIs, like Cogwear, Emotiv, or Muse, to communicate with AI design software or swarms of autonomous agents, achieving a level of synchrony once deemed science fiction. Reinforcement Learning (RL) mirrors human cognitive processes by enabling AI systems to learn through environmental interaction, receiving feedback as rewards or penalties. This learning mechanism is akin to how humans adapt based on the outcomes of their actions. Generate leads and satisfy customers

Chatbots can help with sales lead generation and improve conversion rates. For example, a customer browsing a website for a product or service might have questions about different features, attributes or plans.

Instead, you can use other chatbot software to build the bot and then, integrate Dialogflow with it. This is one of the top chatbot companies and it comes with a drag-and-drop interface. You can also use predefined templates, like ‘thank you for your order‘ for a quicker setup.

To deal with this risk, we searched manually to identify significant work beyond the articles we found in the search databases. Nevertheless, the manual search did not result in any articles that are not already found in the searched databases. Another interesting study was the educational chatbots one presented in (Law et al., 2020), where the authors explored how fourth and fifth-grade students interacted with a chatbot to teach it about several topics such as science and history. The students appreciated that the robot was attentive, curious, and eager to learn.

AI systems may lack the emotional understanding and sensitivity required for dealing with complex sentimental concerns. In educational establishments where mental support is essential, the absence of sensitive intelligence in chatbots can limit their effectiveness in addressing users’ personal needs. Roughly 92% of students worldwide demonstrate a desire for personalized assistance and updates concerning their academic advancement. By analyzing pupils’ learning patterns, these tools customize content and training paths.