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Playing 20 questions with a chatbot 

Short description

The students explore the chatbot’s capabilities and limitations by playing 20 questions with it. 

    

Purpose

THE PURPOSE WITH THE ACTIVITY

UNDERSTANDING TECHNOLOGY

The students familiarise themselves with the chatbot and its limitations by practising how to write prompts. The students will become more confident in using chatbots as a tool. 

SHARING EXPERIENCES

The students can share their strategies for utilising chatbots. 

UNDERSTANDING THE FIELD

The students can actively research their own field of study using a chatbot. 

Performing the exercise

IN CLASS

PLENUM

(5-15 minutes)

  • Introduce the exercise to the students. If the students are unfamiliar with using chatbots, writing the first prompt together as a class can help to clarify the exercise. 

INDIVIDUEL

(10 minutes)

  • The students prompt the chatbot to play a game of 20 questions. They instruct the chatbot to ask 20 numbered questions to guess what the students are thinking of. The students can for example think of a famous person, a theorist related to their field of study or a specific theory. The students respond yes or no to the chatbot’s guesses. 

  • The chatbot may get stuck, forget how to play or not be able to guess correctly. It can be necessary to prompt the chatbot again, if this happens. 

PLENUM

(5 minutes)

  • Discuss how the exercise went. Get the students to share their experiences of how successful they were at getting the chatbot to play along and whether they had to change their prompts. 

Worth considering

CONSIDER

HOW TO WRITE A GOOD PROMPT

If the students are unfamiliar with using chatbots, you should emphasise the importance of writing a good prompt. A short and precise prompt increases the likelihood that the chatbot will answer and behave the way that was intended.  

LIMITED KNOWLEDGE

Chatbots may have limited knowledge of concepts or events that have occurred after a specific year. The students should try to only work within the chatbot’s frame of knowledge. You can check which limitations the chatbot in question may have.  

Variation

OPTIONS TO VARY THE ACTIVITY

COMPARISONS

Try out several different chatbots and compare their performance. You may need to give them different prompts.  

Overview

Time Frame 30 minutes
When In class
Organization Individual
Plenum
Form of teaching Classroom instruction
Type of activity Exercises and experiments 
How will the activity take place?  Onsite
Technology Chatbot

Contact

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