Project Overview

Students in beginner programming classes at Iowa State University frequently have questions about their programming assignments. Since these questions are often repetitive and asked at odd hours of the day, it can take professors many hours to respond. This delay disrupts learning and frustrates young students. From the professor's perspective, taking the time to help each student consumes time from an already filled schedule. The Discord Bot Integration for Replit Teams for Education project attempts to answer student questions immediately, without the need for a professor's interaction.

FAQ

• What is Discord? Discord is a communication platform that allows users to create and join communities called "servers." It is commonly used by students to communicate with their classmates and teachers in real-time through text, voice, and video channels. Students can use Discord to ask questions, collaborate on projects, share resources, and stay connected with their peers and instructors outside of class.
• What is a Discord bot? A Discord bot is an automated program that can perform various tasks within a Discord server, such as moderating content, providing information, and responding to commands. It is built using programming languages such as JavaScript or Python and can be customized to fit the specific needs of a server. Discord bots can enhance the functionality and interactivity of a server, making it more engaging for users. This bot's purpose will be to help answer student questions and facilitate conversations between students and professor.
• What is Replit? Replit is an online code editor that allows students to write, test, and deploy code in various programming languages. It is commonly used in classes to provide a collaborative and interactive environment for programming assignments and projects. With Replit, students can work on coding assignments and projects together, share their code with instructors and peers, and receive feedback in real-time.
• Who does this bot aim to help? The bot will help students in CPR E 161. This class is built for students transfering into Software Engineering to quickly gain proficiency in basic programming techniques. The class is taught by Dr. Zambreno and is currently being taught for the second time ever.
• How is this bot going to answer questions? The team is actively working to determine the best way to answer student queries. Current possibilities include using Chat-GPT or keyword matching.
• How is the bot being built? The bot is being built in Python. There are two frameworks which simplify Discord bot development: Discord.py and Pycord.
• Is the bot sentient? The bot is showing early signs of intelligence. The bot is most definitely not sentient.