“Alexa, watch the class!”
A middle school teacher left the classroom for a few minutes, relying on the Echo Dot they left behind to keep their students in line, Tonia Dousay said. But did it work? Dousay said that it did — even though Echo Dots are not equipped with a camera.
Dousay, an assistant professor and researcher for the Doceo center and Doceo Director Cassidy Hall presented for the Martin Renfrew Interdisciplinary Colloquium Tuesday afternoon. The Doceo Center, located on the third floor of the Education building on campus, researches new technologies and how they can be incorporated into the classroom.
They discussed an experiment where they placed 90 Amazon Echo Dots in schools across Northern Idaho.
Dousay and Hall surveyed the nearly 900 students and teachers impacted by the experiment both before and after the placement of the Dots. While Dousay learned that students are not quite ready to replace their teachers with robots, she found that teachers had come across an amazing array of ways to incorporate the technology into their classrooms.
“After using Alexa, our teachers began to realize and shifted their perceptions — statistical significance, so I’m getting into my stats and my data — that this will change the dynamic of their classrooms,” Dousay said. “But what was interesting was that they didn’t expect how.”
Dousay shared that a special education teacher and their student felt an incredible impact after using the Dot. A student on the autism spectrum the teacher worked with struggled to communicate with classmates and instructors. The student had been pulled from regular classes and worked one-on-one with the teacher. After becoming accustomed to the Dot, the student began to ask “Alexa” questions when they thought the teacher was not looking. The Dot was teaching the student how to interact, Dousay said.
“(The student) began asking questions,” Dousay said. “He began answering Alexa. If you hadn’t noticed, about six months ago, Amazon rolled out an update so now when you give Alexa a command and maybe out of habit you say thank you, Alexa now says ‘you’re welcome.’ That small change has huge implications, because now that young man feels he’s engaging in a conversation with a person and he’s learning proper interaction.”
Dousay shared how a family and consumer sciences teacher loved the timer function. Before using the Dot, the teacher needed to remember which oven was associated with which of the many blaring alarms in the classroom. The Dot allowed the teacher to run multiple timers and label each with the name of the student who needed it, Dousay said.
Math and science teachers loved immediate responses to conversions. This allowed teachers to focus on the overall problem — and help students build critical thinking skills — instead of taking time to understand the details of how to convert one unit into another, Dousay said.
After Dousay finished explaining the experiment, she introduced each piece of technology laid before her audience. She finished by telling the audience they were free to explore and play with each piece of technology for the remainder of the session — and to come back whenever they wish.
Next week, the colloquium will return from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 9 in the Idaho Commons Whitewater Room for “The ForEverglades Quest for Water Sustainability: Adapt, innovate & overcome,” presented by Greg Moller and Clean Water team members.
Lex Miller can be reached at [email protected]