Engaging high school students using chatbots

BENOTTI, LUCIANA; MARTINEZ, M. CECILIA; SCHAPACHNICK, FERNANDO

Proceedings of the 2014 conference on Innovation & technology in computer science education

ACM (American Computer Machinery)

Lugar: New York, NY.; Año: 2014; p. 63 - 69

Chatbots have been used in different scenarios for getting people interested in CS for decades. However, their potential for teaching basic concepts and their engaging effect has not been measured. In this paper we present a software platform called Chatbot designed to foster engagement while teaching basic CS concepts such as variables, conditionals and finite state automata, among others. We carried out two experiences using Chatbot and the well known platform Alice: 1) an online nation-wide competition, and 2) an in-class 15-lesson pilot course in 2 high schools. Data shows that retention and girl interest are higher with Chatbot than with Alice, indicating student engagement.