Morgado, LinaOliveira, TeresaAfonso, Ana PaulaCarvalho, Isabel CristinaFerret, Nathalie2024-07-222024-07-222024Morgado, L, Oliveira, T., Afonso, A., Carvalho, I., Ferret, N. (2024). Exploring the role of Digital Assistants and Chatbots as learning companions in Open and Distance Learning. L. G. Chova, C. G. Martínez , J. Lees (Eds). 16th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies EDULEARN24 Proceedings, pp.10547-10552, Palma, Spain, doi: 10.21125/edulearn.2024.2603http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/16293Digital assistants, virtual tutors or chatbots are new digital tools that significantly enhanced their support for teaching activities, especially in the case of distance learning. Technological advancements have made it possible for these devices to be integrated into various platforms, particularly LMSs or aggregated into virtual settings. In distance learning, student support is a crucial variable as this type of teaching is entirely mediated by technology. Based on the ODL literature, students often encounter difficulties due to a lack of comprehension of tasks, emotional factors and interaction with their teachers and tutors [1], [2]. This article reports on our experiences integrating digital assistants - Virtual tutors and Chatbots- in academic, professional development contexts of teacher training (TUTORIA VIRTUAL project - the virtual tutor as a mediating artefact for Higher education online learning) and scientific support for ODL students in a graduation course (IDEAS Project - An Innovative Digital Education and Skills Approach). The digital assistant (the Virtual Tutor) is a representation of a human teacher or tutor. It autonomously interprets each teaching-learning situation and intervenes with the student according to a specific tutoring plan. The plan includes instructions from the teacher/human tutor and is tailored to the field of knowledge and the student's profile. The Virtual Tutor was developed by a Portuguese consortium of researchers to analyse the pedagogical impact of integrating anthropomorphic interfaces with emotional characteristics, also known as Encapsulated Virtual Agents (ECA) or 'avatars', in online learning environments (OL) based on learning management systems (LMS) for online university teaching. The main idea is to explore how ECAs can be modelled, adapted, and used as virtual tutors in LMS to provide individual online support and follow-up to each student [3]. This presentation describes the implementation of this approach in a large ODL class for a degree in education. The course follows the institution's virtual pedagogical model and a specific scenario was designed for this intervention. Based on the analysis of student discourse and to improve and monitor the impact of the Virtual Tutor as a 'learning companion' [4], it was found that students perceive a lack of proximity, involvement (voice, gaze, affection), dialogue, and guidance in the implementation. The feedback points out that the design of "avatars" could be more intuitive and efficient.engDigital assistantsVirtual tutoringStudent support systemOpen and distance learningconference object10.21125/edulearn.2024.2603