Academic Technology at Dickinson

Notes from the Bosler basement.

A blog about educational technology at Dickinson College.

  • Syllabus Statement Guidance (Updated for 26-27 School Year)

    James D’Annibale, Director of Academic & Emerging Technologies This version was updated July 2026 based on the guidance published in July 2025. The changes to the guidance portion are minimal and reflect changes to available technology and changes in higher education pedagogical practices.  This document offers guidance on how to clearly identify and implement policies…

  • Instructions for Language Professors to Make Your Own Chatbots

    Getting Started – Your First Prompt 1. First, go to https://chatbot.dickinson.edu/profprompt. 2. Enter the password, then click submit. If you don’t know the password, contact Todd at bryantt@dickinson.edu. 3. Select the language that you want the chatbot to be in with the language dropdown near the top of the page. 4. A dropdown for selecting…

  • Instructions for Language Professors to View Students and Navigate the Website

    Navigating the Website 1. Navigate to https://chatbot.dickinson.edu/?prof=true. 2. Click on the hamburger icon on the top right corner. To edit or create new chatbots, click on Prompt, or go to https://chatbot.dickinson.edu/profprompt. To view students, click on View Students, or go to https://chatbot.dickinson.edu/profview. To return to the Voice Chatbot conversation page, click on Professor Dashboard on…

  • Instructions for Students to Use Language Chatbots

    Getting Started 1. First, go to https://chatbot.dickinson.edu. 2. Select the language that you are learning, and pick the chatbot that your professor assigned. 3. Either type a message or speak to the chatbot verbally to communicate with the chatbot. 4. In order to listen to a message from the chatbot, click the speaker icon on…

  • Updates to the Foreign Language Chatbot

    Thank you to our computer science intern Hillary Zhong, we have several updates to the chatbot.  (Only available on campus) Professors creating prompts can now choose from any of the provided voices available via OpenAI. Instructions can be included for the students as well.  Finally, for grading professors can quickly see the number of times…

  • AI Scout Agent Post 12/3/25

    This post was written by the ChatGPT agent that we set up to look for AI related ed-tech news and trends. Continuing Our Partnership With ChatGPT: AI & Higher‑Ed Blog Series Hello community! Earlier this semester we partnered with ChatGPT to build a specialized Higher‑Education AI Intelligence Scout. This agent runs every week, scanning the open web for…

  • Partnering with an AI Scout: Launching Our Weekly Higher‑Ed AI Blog Series

    This post was written 100% by ChatGPT agent that I (James D’Annibale) designed to scan the internet for Teaching/Learning AI news and trends. The agent finds stories, puts them into themed categories for me, and then I tell it which stories are truly noteworthy for the context of Dickinson College. It then writes a blog…

  • AI Chatbots for Foreign Languages

    In a previous post, I described updates we have made to our Dickinson Chatbot. There are other free chatbots that can be used for practicing foreign languages as well, that you may prefer. The best one I’ve seen is from AI School. For most faculty here, we won’t run into caps on their free version…

  • Update to Foreign Language Chatbot

    We have made several important upgrades to the foreign language chatbot, adding audio for verbal conversations and the ability for professors to view transcripts of their students’ conversations. I’ve created at least one demo chatbot for each foreign language taught at Dickinson to give an idea of what’s possible. Keep in mind these bots can…

  • Syllabus Statement Guidance (Updated for 26-27 School Year)

    James D’Annibale, Director of Academic & Emerging Technologies This version was updated July 2026 based on the guidance published in July 2025. The changes to the guidance portion are minimal and reflect changes to available technology and changes in higher education pedagogical practices.  This document offers guidance on how to clearly identify and implement policies…

  • Transparent Assignment Design in the Age of AI

    James D’Annibale, Director of Academic & Emerging Technologies Originally written July 2025. This version was updated July 2026. The changes to the guidance portion are minimal and reflect changes to available technology and changes in higher education pedagogical practices. The “Example Assignment Briefs” have been totally overhauled to reflect real assignments done at Dickinson College…

  • Sample AI Related Syllabus Statements

    James D’Annibale, Director of Academic Technology Introduction This document provides a set of sample syllabus statements designed to help faculty consider and communicate their policies on generative AI in their courses. These examples reflect a range of pedagogical approaches — from full integration of AI tools to complete prohibition — and are intended to spark…