Chatbots are special programmes whose purpose is to communicate autonomously with a (human) counterpart. Most often, the term chatbot is used in the context of a specific communication goal (e.g. chatbots for providing information or ordering a product). Within educational context, chatbots can be used as tutors. By interacting with students, they learn about their needs and questions and know where they need support. The chatbot recognises the user’s intention, extracts the relevant data from the request and generates a response.
Many education apps have an integrated chatbot functionality. For example, the communication and project platform Slack has an integrated chatbot.
Slack DailyBot: daily surveys can be conducted among students to increase motivation and record performance. – DailyBot | App-Verzeichnis von Slack
This bot can be simply installed from the app directory into a so-called Slack workspace that one runs and assigned to the relevant communication channels (“Channels”).