TELEGRAM BOT FOR M-LEARNING AT CLASSROOM

A. Alcayde1, F.G. Montoya1, E. Salmerón-Manzano1, A.J. Perea-Moreno2, R. Baños1, F. Manzano-

Agugliaro1
1
University of Almeria (SPAIN)
2
University of Cordoba (SPAIN)

In this communication, a free application for learning in M-learing mode in higher education has been
developed and evaluated. A Telegram bot has been developed called Quiz. The goal is to facilitate
proactive learning of students in higher education. Zquiz is a bot developed for Telegram (the instant
messaging application), which allows the teacher to perform or program, very easily, the quiz that will be
delivered in real time on every smartphone of the group.

In this first version, the teacher, just needs to write to the bot a kind of query commands or action to
interact with the bot. E.g. to perform a quiz, the teacher writes the command "survey" or presses the
button "new survey", responding bot with the list of subjects or groups that has teaching assets in the
database through a menu of actions. Then the teacher selects the subject and the bot asks him to write
the text of the quiz. Once the action is validated, the bot asks the type of evaluation (yes / no, true / false,
Numerical: 0, 1, 2, ..., 9). Once selected, the bot prepares a preview for the teacher, which if accepted, is
forwarded to all members of the teaching group, sending an activation code that the teacher must provide
the attendees by verbally or written on a blackboard. So that they can only answer those who are present.
Students registered in the course will receive a message from Telegram; Where the bot indicates that it is
required for a quiz of the subject that is being explained at that moment, at the same time that it asks the
authorization code of the quiz. If the student enters the code then the bot sends a text with the quiz and a
context menu to select the different evaluation alternatives. So, once the code was validated, the student
is allowed to send the answer and also is allowed to write a note associated with the quiz with a free text.
As feedback the teacher receives real-time answers and therefore can consult the progress of the
explanation while encouraging the attention and therefore the participation of the group of students
present in the class. In addition, the bot offers the teacher the participation rate, the evaluation statistics,
and the student's notes / observations that have been written in the free text field. The developed
software is cheap (free) and flexible to implement since the university students usually have
Smartphones. In addition, it offers an interactive experience while encouraging the collaboration in the
classroom preserving the anonymity of the student, this offers a greatest integration and participation of
the group in learning.