Enhancing Personalized Learning with AI: Introducing the CIDDL Chatbot
Author: Yerin Seung; info@ciddl.org
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFMbpcrAJ0c[/embedyt]
On the episode of the CIDDL AI Office Hours on March 4th, 2025, Dr. James Basham, Dr. Jennifer Lohoefener, and Daniel Neugent from the University of Kansas introduced one of the latest updates on CIDDL, developing a CIDDL chatbot. The chatbot offers a personalized experience for educators to interact with and navigate CIDDL’s resources. This development was possible with interdisciplinary collaboration, as Dr. Basham, an expert in education, and Dr. Lohoefener and Neugent, experts from the field of computer science, have worked together to build a tool tailored to the needs of educators.
What’s Special About CIDDL Chatbot?
The team envisioned an AI-driven assistant that could help educators access the content on the CIDDL website more easily. The chatbot was designed to allow users to ask direct questions and receive contextualized responses based on information retrieved specifically from trusted sources within CIDDL. Compared to general AI models such as ChatGPT and Gemini, this reduces the possibility of hallucination and ensures that responses align with best practices in special education.
Another standout feature of the chatbot is its ability to recognize domain-specific terminology. For example, in the field of special education, the phrase “assistive technology” must be treated as a single concept rather than two unrelated words. By refining how terms are processed and ensuring that the chatbot understands professional language, the development team has improved the quality and relevance of the responses.
The CIDDL chatbot also includes a text-to-speech feature, allowing users to listen to the chatbot’s responses rather than reading them. This makes the chatbot more accessible for individuals with vision impairments and reading difficulties. While this feature is still in beta, CIDDL is improving it to enhance interaction and usability.
Practical Applications for Educators
The chatbot has the potential to enhance teaching and learning experiences. Educators can use it to:
- Quickly locate resources on topics such as AI in education and assistive technology.
- Generate ideas for lesson plans tailored to specific instructional goals.
- Retrieve citations and references from CIDDL’s resources of research and best practices.
- Access information in a more user-friendly and intuitive way compared to traditional search engines.
Ongoing Improvements and Future Plans
Currently, the CIDDL chatbot pulls information exclusively from CIDDL’s website. However, the development team is exploring expanding its database to include peer-reviewed research. When this feature is implemented, users can access scholarly sources directly through chatbot responses, improving the reliability and credibility of the information provided.
Because the chatbot is still in its beta phase, the development team is actively seeking feedback from educators. Users are encouraged to experiment with the tool, report inconsistencies, and suggest improvements. Over time, the chatbot will continue to evolve through fine-tuning and integrating more data.
Try the CIDDL Chatbot and Share Your Feedback
We invite you to try our CIDDL chatbot and share your experiences in our community. Stay tuned for more updates as the chatbot evolves!