Inspiration
With COVID-19 the number of students that starts online classes grew up in an exponential way! This situation imposes new challenges to these students and their parents who must pay attention in the deadlines of a series of assessments and activities that are developed in a learning platform. Sometimes it is difficult to get just a specific date from this learning platform because you need to login and start searching the information that you need. It would be easier if you can just talk to this platform and get information. One of the most used learning platforms is Moodle, an open source application that have spread over the World and nowadays several educational institutions use. So, with the help of Wit.AI we construct a Facebook Messenger interface that allows students and their parents to get information in simpler and intuitive way.
What it does
It implements a Speak and Natural Language interface to Moodle. Moodle is an open source learning platform. With the help of Wit.AI and our interface it is possible to get information from Moodle using the Facebook Messenger and natural language.
How We built it
We built it around an AWS Lambda Function written in Python. The idea of using the AWS Lambda Function is to reduce costs (because the interface runs only when it is invoked by Messenger) and to give the interface the ability to run 24 hours 7 days a week.
We trained the Wit.AI interface with common utterances said by students to get information. We use subjects’ names like Grammar and Mathematics to train the entities.
Challenges I ran into
Moodle has an API that allows connections from outside applications; however, it is difficult to find out documentation. Another difficult was to train the Wit.AI application with the right sentences.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I am proud of the speed of the response that we get in obtaining information from Moodle. It is much easier to start a small conversation in Messenger to get deadlines, for example, than the need to access the Moodle site to retrieve a so simple data.
What I learned
I have learned the use of Wit.AI that is an incredible platform to process natural language. It is so easy to work with it that I get impressed.
What's next for Nuwen project
Translate it to new languages, one of them is going to be Portuguese, our natural language. The other issue is to spread his use, Moodle have spread all over the World and we think that several students can make use of the Nuwen Project.
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