When Mateo Catano
returned for his second year as an undergraduate at Saint Louis University in
the fall of 2018, he found himself with a new roommate—not another student but
a disembodied brain in the form of an Amazon Echo Dot.
Earlier
that summer, the information technology department at SLU had installed about
2,300 of the smart speakers—one for each of the university’s residence hall
rooms, making the school the first in the country to do so. Each device was
pre-programmed with answers to about 130 SLU-specific questions, ranging from
library hours to the location of the registrar’s office (the school dubbed this
“AskSLU”). The devices also included the basic voice “skills” available on
other Dots, including alarms and reminders, general information, and the
ability to stream music.
For
Catano, the Dot was a welcome addition. He liked hearing the weather first
thing in the morning and knowing which dining halls were open. And, if he’s
being honest, he liked the company. “Living in a single, AskSLU definitely made
me feel less lonely,” he says. “And I liked the status of being at the first
university to do this.”
Catano’s reaction was
exactly what SLU administrators were hoping for. This fall, the Jesuit
institution announced plans to broaden the voice skills of its Echo Dots by
including both text messaging and chatbot functions.
No idea of
the long-term effects
We’re on the verge of a new era of smart speakers on campus.
Schools as wide-ranging as Arizona State University, Lancaster University in
the UK, and Ross University School of Medicine in Barbados have adopted
voice-skill technology on campus. Some, including Northeastern University, have
taken the technology a step further and now give students access to financials,
course schedules and grades, and outstanding fees via voice devices.
In
late 2018, Boston’s Emerson College announced it was one of 18 recipients of a
grant from Amazon to advance voice--enabled technology on campuses, part of the
tech giant’s Alexa Innovation Fellowship. Emerson has created a dedicated voice
lab where students can interact and experiment with Alexa skills, and it plans
to install Alexa devices in places like theaters and outside elevator banks.
Administrators at some
of these schools told me they believe Alexa will bolster enrollment and reduce
dropout rates. Several also said they believe voice technology can increase
their students’ success and boost their overall happiness.
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