If your classmate were the protagonist of Poruka’s short story – how was the conversation Cibiņš / Article made

If your classmate were the hero of Poruka’s short story – how Cibiņš became a conversationPaula Dēvica00:00 / 05:14

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Jānis Poruka’s short story “Battle at Knipska” depicts events in a 19th century school. The main characters are two – Pēteris Buņģu, who is a proud and cruel boy, and Jēkabs Cibiņi, who has a diligent, gentle child’s soul. If earlier you could get acquainted with Cibiņa only by reading or listening to Poruka’s short story, now you can also talk to him – the first virtual assistant of Latvian literature has been created, which is available on the website letonika.lv. It was created by the technology company “Tilde” in cooperation with the teachers of Emīls Dārziņš Music High School and Imanta Secondary School.

Anita Vasiljeva, the head of Letonika.lv, explains how the idea of ​​a conversation bot or chatbot came about: “Chatbot facilitates answers to standard questions, for example, in customer service. Well then, those technologies were already in place for us. But the idea was that somehow it was necessary to use this technology in another field, for another purpose – education. Then we had a joint project – literature 7-9. class. Cibiņš is a 12-14 year old boy. And the children are already exactly the same age.

It was important for us to build that bridge, to imagine that a child like Cibiņš is your classmate and what would you do if you had such a classmate? ”

Cibiņš is able to answer questions in three different directions. First of all, to the questions about the short story “Battle at Knipska”. Secondly, it is possible to learn a lot about the time in which the story takes place, thus it is possible to supplement one’s knowledge of history and understand what is described in the story even better – Ieva Āne-Miķelsone, a literature teacher at Emīls Dārziņš Music High School, has done a great job.

She says: “There I was really looking for materials, I read a monograph on schools in the 19th century, I read materials from the Poruka Museum about how it could all have been in life. There I also asked young people – what they don’t understand, what they would like to know more about. And there are both the facts that I could really find, and there are questions here that are difficult to give the only correct answer. And there Cibiņš also tries to avoid the only correct answer. And here and there is a small percentage where he speaks in my voice. ”

Pupils have also helped to understand what other topics and conversations young people are interested in, including various nonsense, says Āne-Miķelsone. It is interesting that Cibiņš is also trained to provide feedback – he tends to ask if you have encountered similar problems at school yourself and if you know someone who has had a hard time at school. The assistant creators explain that it is currently working in a test mode – it will assess whether the students will really answer these questions, and then the bot’s answer possibilities will also increase, possibly by suggesting where to turn for help. Madara, Kristaps and Fricis, ninth-grade students of Dārziņa Music High School, also helped to understand how to make Cibiņa more interesting for students.

According to them, “Battle at Knipska” should be read by everyone, because there are many modern problems in the story. The students tried Cibiņa, which was still in the so-called beta version, when Cibiņš was able to answer relatively simple questions, but the students noticed that now Cibiņa’s skills have improved.

Virtual Cibiņi in schools can now be used as a teaching tool, and this available on letonika.lv, moreover, it is a relatively multifunctional chat bot, as it is able not only to answer questions, but also to find explanations of concepts and play the game. In addition, there are two more conversation booths available, which are intended only for testing knowledge – Fisherman from Rūdolfs Blaumanis’ short story “In the Shadow of Death” and Skrodieriene from the play “Skroderdienas Silmači” by the same author.

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