What Will Be in Those Lap Tops: Empowering Students and Teachers to Add Content to an Educational Chatbot's Knowledge Base

Abstract

The Government of Kenya has in the recent past been on a serious footing to put in place ICT initiatives and projects aimed at realizing the potential within its recognition of ICT as a foundation for a knowledge economy as per vision 2030. The tempo has risen several notches higher with the current intention and initiative of making available laptops to pupils and students in primary schools in the years to come. However, once computer hardware is available to schools as PC’s, Laptops and other mobile computing devices, a critical issue which must be adequately addressed is the educational content within. This paper outlines a possible approach using open source software development concepts and the Participatory Action Research (PAR) model as a means of empowering students and teachers to become active developers of the content they consume.