Using Chatbots to Teach Socially Intelligent Computing Principles in Introductory Computer Science Courses

Teaching "socially intelligent computing" concepts in introductory computer science courses is possible through curricular projects that involve students developing their own collaborative chatbots. Chat bots are programs that interact with users in a conversational context. Introductory CS students can write these types of programs using a framework of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) libraries presented in this poster paper. When the students build chat bots that collaborate with one another, the students are introduced to a branch of machine intelligence called socially intelligent computing.