AN EXPLORATORY RESEARCH ON THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL ASSISTANTS IN EDUCATION

Abstract

Digital assistants are currently expanding, and they are integrated into the daily lives of many users. In the implementation of digital assistants, various technologies are used, such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), etc. This article is an exploratory research in digital assistants used mainly for educational purposes. The progress of the EdTech sector has brought significant changes in the educational landscape. In this context, digital assistants are one of the technological advancements that could have a high impact on education. It is very likely to see more institutions using virtual assistants in education over the next few years, given the advancements in virtual assistants and their impact in the process during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several schools and universities have already started to use Amazon's Alexa for support issues like answering administrative questions or guiding students around the campus. Although for the moment they have rather basic functionality, it is obvious that virtual assistants can already be used in education and have the potential to boost students' performance, assist teachers' activity and support administrative tasks. This paper will focus on providing a state of the art of current initiatives and discuss the perspectives on how digital assistants can shift the education industry. It will also discuss future development possibilities and use case scenarios. The progress of artificial intelligence and its integration with virtual assistants shows that there are many opportunities ahead for using digital assistants in education, but there is still a long to go to realize their full potential. But for sure, they will be used in the future in more complex contexts.