Amazon Alexa Skills as a Novel Modality for In-service Professional Micro-Development (WiP)

Intelligent digital assistants, such as products like Amazon’s Alexa, are becoming more prolific and available as time progresses. This work reports on the process of developing applications, refered to by Alexa as ’skills,’ to support in-service professional development for teachers. The precedent of allowing Alexa to be utilized within the classroom, but not necessarily for teachers’ skill development, is explored to contextualize the application of the technology as a professional development modality. Across the entire content development spectrum – spanning script writing to deployment and release – lessons are presented from experience to assist future teams embarking on the process in the hopes they are able to avoid repeating the problems encountered by this research team. Finally, a general discussion relating to the future of intelligent digital assistants and their applications to professional development is presented with the intent of provoking discussion and setting the stage for more rigorous investigations into the usability, efficacy, and results of this technology.