The education sector has been witnessing a significant disruption with the rise of online learning. With the help of technology, the online education system has been changing the aspects of teaching and learning and has been providing new possibilities to students and educators.
Recent data predict that the online education market will reach $350 billion by 2025; it is vital for the survival and evolution of educational institutions to acquire the right tools to adapt their existing systems to the digital space. This digital transformation means implementing an infrastructure that benefits students, teachers, and staff in all aspects of information, communication, and support.
So how do chatbots fit in this equation? We talk a lot about how chatbots benefit businesses, but bots are also an excellent tool to support educational institutions to excel in the education space, both online and offline. Here is how.
The Challenges in Education
The core function of an educational institution is to provide knowledge to students and ensure students are receiving and absorbing relevant information that will be valuable to them in the long term.
However, the job of schools and universities goes way beyond simply passing knowledge. Educational institutions also measure their success through the effective administration of the staff and internal matters, and it can be a challenging task to check all the boxes.
Educational spaces have the responsibility to provide support for both teachers and students from an administrative perspective. These admin duties may include handling admissions, payments, supervising academic affairs, managing records and documentation, and more.
Below, we will outline some of the main obstacles that educational institutions have to manage today:
Crisis Management: During the COVID-19 pandemic, 80% of youths were out of classrooms. Schools and universities had to migrate to the online environment quickly. While many institutions ultimately and successfully shifted to online and distance learning, others might have lacked preparation and structure to manage such an impactful change on short notice.
Administrative Management: Educational institutions deal with a high volume of queries and phone calls daily for numerous reasons. Long response times and miscommunication within the institution can result in frustrated students and prospects and unmotivated teachers and staff.
Adapting to the Digital Age: Some institutions found difficulty in shifting their programs and processes online. Another significant aspect to consider is the gap across social classes during this transition, especially in countries where technology is not easily accessible to everyone.
Education Bots: The Revolution in Education
Chatbots are being used increasingly across educational institutions to streamline their processes outside and inside the classroom. More and more educators recognise the benefits and the effectiveness that chatbots can bring to their day to day tasks. Academics are not only using chatbots to help with students’ engagement but also to facilitate administrative issues.
Here are some of the ways chatbots are helping educational institutions improve their services:
Chatbots provide administrative support: Educational institutions always manage administrative affairs, such as assignment submission, fees payments, registration, examination and assessment schedule, etc. However, bots can quickly and automatically solve the vast majority of these problems. Bots increase effectiveness and remove the burden on the staff.
Chatbots increase student and staff satisfaction: Chatbots are available 24 hours and seven days a week, allowing people to have their issues solved. The quick response times and ability to save all users information results in higher customer satisfaction rates. Also, by recording all incoming and solved queries, institutions can constantly evaluate, analyse and, most importantly, improve the quality of their services.
Chatbots improve communication and support: Chatbots can receive and solve inquiries and answer frequent questions almost instantly, making communication faster and more dynamic. It also brings accuracy and consistency. Anyone interacting with your chatbot for a given topic will receive the same predefined message, avoiding problems of miscommunication and duplicated data. You can also design your bot to send information from the institution to students and teachers proactively.
Chatbots improve student engagement: Students interact with technology more than ever before, which makes it easier for them to engage and trust chatbots. Chatbots can work as a learning support tool for students, to help and provide them with quick and convenient information. For example, if a student has questions about exams or assignments, they can interact with the bot and have their questions and queries answered at any time.
Chatbots offer a personalised experience: You can build personalised chat flows to improve even more the chatbot experience for students and teachers. With chatbots, institutions can provide a more entertaining and customised approach to education.
Flow XO: The Bot for Educators
Flow XO for Chat is a robust platform that allows educators to build, host and manage chatbots. A Flow XO bot comes with valuable features that streamline institutions’ duties and internal processes.
A Flow XO bot can help students answer most of their questions instantly, such as “what time is my exam next week?”. In some instances, they can even direct them to the right landing page, article, document or video.
A critical feature of a Flow XO chatbot is handing off the conversation to a staff member on a live chat. For example, if a student or teacher asks a more complex question, the bot can easily hand the conversation to a team member to solve the issue and offer more in-depth support.
Flow XO chatbots can also gather information to ease the registration process for staff and even help teachers form assignment groups.
Showcase: Edsby – Chatbot for K-12 Learning Management
Edsby is a real case example of how a Flow XO chatbot can impact educational institutions.
Edsby is the most comprehensive learning and analytics platform available for the learning management software K-12. Edsby engages students, parents and teachers; it enables personalised learning experiences and offers new ways to measure and improve educational effectiveness.
The video below shows the Edsby chatbot in action:
Edsby is used as a customer support tool for students and educators. If the bot cannot answer a question, Edsby will automatically send an email to a human agent that can provide further assistance. Edsby bot gathers information as well, so educators can analyse emails to revise keywords and improve flow logic.
Unlocking the Potential of Online Education with Chatbots
Nowadays, all you need is a computer and internet connection to learn something new, and people have access to information almost instantly. This flexibility enables students to study at their own pace, any place and any time. Thus, online education offers infinite possibilities to students and teachers.
While some people may prefer the traditional way of learning, implementing chatbots still offers several advantages that benefit modern education, such as:
Ease and flexibility of learning and accessing information;
Faster feedbacks;
24/7 student and teacher support;
Higher rates of engagement and interaction between teachers, students and institutions
Chatbots make the learning process more engaging for students and help students develop their tech skills. It also supports educators and other members of staff to improve administrative services.
Integrating bots into the classroom will be a crucial part of modern education. Institutions need to choose a platform that is aware of students’ needs and can provide the features to make educational institutions thrive.
Flow XO for Chat is a powerful automation product that allows educators to quickly build high-level chatbots. With Flow XO, educators and other staff members can communicate and engage with students and teammates across a wide range of different platforms, applications and websites.
Ready to get started? Start for free and build an educational bot today with Flow XO