This article places smart personal assistants such as Amazon's Alexa or Google's Assistant into a lineage that includes concepts such as intelligent tutoring systems, tools that "provide assistance by answering questions in natural language, making recommendations, and performing actions." Now, true, the flurry of interest in personal assistants from a few years ago has subsided, but the concept is still intriguing. This article asks whether using these systems helps students develop their problem-solving skills and whether they influence the learning process of students. My immediate reaction would be "it's far too soon to get reliable empirical data." The tools just aren't ready. But this article gives us an early look with a tiny (n=45) study and suggests that "this new technology might be able to offer dynamic scaffolds in a more natural and sophisticated way."
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