SnatchBot - A great conversational agent for the classroom

What is it?

SnatchBot is a platform that takes the complexity out of creating a chatbot, the virtual agent that simulates a sequence of conversational interactions anticipated by its creator.

The platform offers a free plan that provides access to all the basic features.

How does it work?

Grégory Michnik, associate professor of SVT (Life and Earth Sciences) at L'Escaut High School, offers us on the site disciplinary of the academy of Lille, a video that describes how to create a very simple chatbot and that also allows to understand the basics to start.

N.B.: The YouTube channel SnatchBot France also features several explainer videos made by Lorcan Teichne, the feature writer for The Chatbot magazine team.

For what uses?

- Lucie Dhorne

Eurovia (VINCI) educational manager and founder of Creativ'ip, Lucie Dhorne gives us a few examples of educational uses of chatbots in training (to present a training program, in learning escape games - face-to-face or remote - to create a link and a presence throughout the game,...) as part of a podcast of Rendez-vous en terre digitale hosted by Olivier Bernaert and Clément Cahagne.

- Gregory Michnik

As part of the article "Integrating a conversational agent in an exploration game" available on the SVT academic website of Lille, Grégory Michnik describes how to create a chatbot that gives the illusion to a student of conversing with a fictitious character in a serious exploration game.

He explains that the interest of integrating a conversational agent into a serious game is to provide a greater degree of interaction for a student. This offers in particular, for Gregory Michnik, the possibility of guiding the player towards what is important, bringing him clarifications while keeping a freedom of exploration.

The author of the article, presents us as an example the serious game "La Ferme de la Pomme d'Or" that he realized and for which he created a conversational agent with the help of the SnatchBot tool. He then integrated this, via an iframe, into a Genially interface (see below).

The game features a character (Achilles) with the role of a farmer. The latter, through a conversation with the student-player, leads to explore certain parts of his farm in order to gather some useful information. It then tests the student on what he has discovered or understood.

Gregory Michnik concludes his article by writing that the chatbot is a powerful training tool that can be used in multiple ways and also a very flexible tool that offers the possibility of designing a deep scripting. He still wants to remind us, that it can in no way replace a real visit, nor the natural conversation with a real professional passionate about his job.

Bonus: If you want to know how to seamlessly integrate a conversational agent into a virtual tour made with Genially, I invite you to watch the video made by the author.

N.B.: You can also find other examples of use in the article "Integrating a chatbot into Genially" written by Mélanie Fenaert for the S'CAPE Collective.

- DRNE région académique Bourgogne-Franche-Comté

The Délégation Régionale au Numérique pour l'Education explains in its article "Chatbots in Education" how it can be useful to use a chatbot in education.

The educational contributions of a chatbot are multiple, it allows to :

• Strengthen personalized feedback;
• Strengthen student engagement by making them actors in their learning, as the scenario unfolds according to their responses;
• Strengthen differentiation of learning;
• Reinforce a pedagogy based on experience and learning by trial and error;
• Reinforce student autonomy;
• Reinforce pedagogical and social tutoring (learning, counseling, guidance,..) ;
• Strengthen the personalization of student assessment.

My review of SnatchBot

SnatchBot is a platform that offers a simple interface to easily take ownership and design the creation of a chatbot, this virtual agent that simulates a sequence of conversational interactions anticipated by its creator. Although chatbots will never replace the teacher, they still offer a vast potential in education by proposing new learning modalities. It is also, to quote Gregory Michnik, a flexible tool that offers the possibility of deep scripting that can be enriched over time.

Now, it is important to keep in mind that using a chatbot for certain purposes requires time in development and design to achieve a "natural" conversational system. Because as the DRNE of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté so rightly reminds us, it requires a substantial amount of scripting work when the designer has to set up everything. It is therefore also a great opportunity to develop a team project by confronting the scenarios and having them tested.

Please note: I invite you to discover the excellent initiative by Radio-Canada's Decrypteurs with the goal of raising awareness among young Internet users about the fight against disinformation and helping them understand how fake news is spread with the help of a conversational robot that simulates a conversation related to the fifteen proposed themes.

Gerald TIROT

Sources

Bernaert, Olivier. "Episode 35- SnatchBot." RDV Digital Earth, November 29, 2021, https://www.rdventerredigitale.com/post/episode-35-snatchbot.

"ChatBot In Education". Genial.Ly, https://view.genial.ly/5f0336c017e8720d72142e77/interactive-content-chatbot-en-education. Accessed May 11, 2022.

"Fighting Misinformation with a Conversational Agent." The Trainer's Workshop, https://latelierduformateur.fr/combattre-la-desinformation-avec-un-agent-conversationnel/. Accessed May 13, 2022.

Building a Chatbot with SnatchBot. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwQFJ7Xxohk. Accessed May 11, 2022.

"The Golden Apple Farm." Genial.Ly, https://view.genial.ly/5eddef5be9f5950d5de7798e/interactive-content-la-ferme-de-la-pomme-dor. Accessed May 11, 2022.

"ChatBots in Education." DRNE - Délégation Régionale du Numérique pour l'Education, July 15, 2020, https://drne.region-academique-bourgogne-franche-comte.fr/les-chatbot-en-education/.

Michnik, Gregory. Integrating a conversational agent into an exploration game. http://svt.discipline.ac-lille.fr/ressources/tice/realite-virtuelle-et-realite-augmentee/integrer-un-agent-conversationnel-dans-une-visite-virtuelle.

S'CAPE-Integrating a chatbot into Genially. https://scape.enepe.fr/chatbot-genially.html?utm_source=pocket_mylist#nh1. Accessed May 11, 2022.

"Snatchbot". Ausha, https://podcast.ausha.co/rendez-vous-en-terre-digitale/snatchbot. Accessed May 11, 2022.

SnatchBot. SnatchBot: free conversational agent solutions, intelligent bot service and artificial intelligence. https://fr.snatchbot.me/. Accessed May 11, 2022.

Add to my playlists