Research
As the popularity of smart assistants increases, so does the research about them. Although this website will not go into full detail, some relevant studies will be listed here and cited in the reference page for anyone interested in reading more.
A study by Festerling and Siraj (2020) investigated children's interactions with, and perceptions of smart assistants, and their understanding of the line between human and machine. The study found that children experienced a strong notion of excitement while conversing with Alexa, even without making use of digital functionalities and services. Children still showed understanding that machines were created by humans, and do not have the same abilities as them. (Festerling & Siraj, 2020)
A study by Dizon and Tang (2020) investigated the potential of Alexa as a language learning tool. The study found that many participants initially showed interest in the potential of Alexa as a language learning tool, but did not actively engage with the virtual assistant during data collection. (Dizon & Tang, 2020)
A study by Liew et al., (2023) investigated Alexa's ability to convey social cues when narrating multimedia learning materials. This study was done with young adults studying at University, and found that modern text-to-speech voice enthusiasm had a positive affect on learners' emotions and cognitive load during multimedia learning. (Liew et al., 2023)
(Any additional research that may be shared in comments by other MET students will be added here.)
Applications for Students/Teachers
Here is a list of general ways in which Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant can be used by educators. Many of them are similar to ways many use the smart assistants in their day to day lives.
Spelling: Useful for students and teachers alike. This is a great tool when editing, or writing on the chalk board (even teachers sometimes need reminders!).
Definitions: This can be great for students to utilize as they are reading text (less disruptive than using a dictionary or google search).
Calculations: Helpful for any straightforward addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, or when converting measurement. May become a bit less useful when order of operations comes into play (which is actually helpful for teachers who are trying to teach this skill).
Set Reminders: A great way to help the teacher remember that they owe the class a fun period (or any reminder of course!), or to teach students to use in place of (or alongside) a planner.
Create Events: Likely more useful for teachers. A great way to quickly add upcoming school events to your personal calendar.
Flip coin/roll dice: Sometimes you just don't have a coin or a dice handy!
Forecast: Smart assistants are able to share current and future weather information for any location. This can be useful as an aid during a geography lesson, or when tracking daily weather in the classroom. It can also be used to further students understanding of meteorology/climate change/weather patterns.
Timer: Although the timer is not visual, it can be quite useful, and easy to use on the fly. Students may also appreciate the lack of a visual countdown, as this can sometimes stress students out.
Research: This can be a particularly useful tool for students that find reading/writing challenging. As students are able to ask questions directly to the smart assistant, this completely removes the need to read or write. As the artificial intelligence continues to get better, smart assistants are also becoming better at responding to research questions, in order to help students research become more in depth.
Answer Subject Based Questions: Sometimes students ask questions that the educator does not have an answer for. Smart assistants are able to answer many questions that may fall into this category. Additionally, students are often uncomfortable asking questions. This feature allows them to do so without other students hearing.
Play (and Identify) Music: When allowing students to listen to music on devices, it can sometimes take them quite a long time to find music, and they are often distracted by the need to continuously find new songs. Smart assistants can potentially alleviate this issues by allow students (or the teacher) to ask for a song to be played, and then continuing to play similar music without any prompting.
Interactive Stories and Games: As discussed below, smart assistants have allowed for developers to create custom content for smart assistants (with Alexa and Google assistant having the larger variety as of now). This means that students can experiment with many different interactive stories and games. Sometimes they can be challenging to find, so encourage students to try a variety of prompts ("Can you read me an adventure story" "I'd like to play a game" "What's the animal of the day?" etc.)
Translator: This is an area in which smart assistants show tremendous potential. Currently Google assistant has the most in depth options, with the ability to use translator mode to live translate conversations between people speaking different languages.
Applications for Educational Developers
It's safe to say that the ability to customize within smart assistants is quite out of the wheelhouse of this websites creator (unfortunately time restraints didn't allow for a chance to research and explore this very much). With this in mind, all of the "big three" smart assistants have created a programming language to allow customization. This allows developers (and general interested users) to further customize the smart assistant experience. For educators who are interested in creating their own content, this has immense potential. The following are three useful links for anyone who is interested in learning more: