Intelligent Assistants in Education: Capabilities and Limitations

This workshop, delivered at the mLearn 2020 conference, provides an opportunity to consider and to explore, collectively and critically, the advent of Intelligent Assistants (IAs) from the user perspective in the context of teaching and learning. IAs such as Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, etc. are available on smartphones and many other devices and offer a range of services. Some are being developed to support specific aspects of learning. What claims are being made about their capabilities, and what do we know of their limitations? The workshop offers an overview of this rapidly growing field; it engages participants in activities to explore and discuss IAs’ capabilities and limitations; and it encourages participants to consider how IAs can best support a group of learners, for example their own students.