After a successful first demo of the avatar during WARA M&L Community Days in November, the next step in the Avatar project is to test and evaluate the technology in a real classroom environment.
On March 17, an interactive AI avatar will assist junior high school teacher Benjamin Lüning in supporting students with English and AI curriculum questions. The avatar is designed to support teachers by answering student questions about these two topics and providing additional individualized assistance.
The goal of the project is to enhance students’ understanding of artificial intelligence while exploring the potential role of AI avatars in classrooms as support for both teachers and students. The idea is that new technology should be developed together with the intended end-users to make sure the solutions are relevant, accessible and effective. In this case, students were invited to participate in the project at an early stage to boost their interest and confidence in using new technology.
The initiative, led by Modda Sörmland, Flen Municipality and WARA Media & Language, is part of Region Sörmland and Flen Municipality’s efforts to foster interest in technology, mathematics and science among young students. Developed by NVIDIA and SoftServe with Umeå University researchers, the avatar integrates speech recognition and pedagogical materials.