ElevenLabs AI Voice Tool Review for Educators
AI for Education reviewed the ElevenLabs AI Voice Tool through an educator lens, digging into the new autonomous voice agent functionality that facilitates interactive user engagement. We showcase the creation of a customized vocabulary bot, which defines words at a 9th-grade level and includes options for uploading supplementary material. The demo includes real-time testing of the bot's capabilities in defining terms and quizzing users.
The discussion also explored the AI tool's potential for aiding language learners and neurodivergent individuals, and Mandy presented a phone conversation coach bot to help her 13-year-old son, highlighting the tool's ability to provide patient, repetitive practice opportunities.
While acknowledging the technology's potential, particularly in accessibility and language learning, we also want to emphasize the importance of supervised use and privacy considerations. Right now the tool is currently free, this likely won't always remain the case, so we encourage everyone to explore and test it out now as it continues to develop.
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00:01
Amanda Bickerstaff
Hi, everyone, it's Amanda from AI for Education. I'm excited to have you here today with me and Mandy on the team. Every once in a while, there's a new AI feature that we get really excited about. And yesterday in our Slack channel, Mandy was like, I am totally doing work. But also ElevenLabs voice agents are pretty cool. So we want to do a short video. I'm going to give you our disclaimer. We are not ElevenLabs experts, but when we see, like, new technology that can potentially have an impact on classrooms, we like to try it out. And so ElevenLabs is, like, known as the kind of main, like, text to voice, like, kind of organization out there. In fact, if you've. You probably have heard 11 labs voices in other places.
00:42
Amanda Bickerstaff
And so what they've done is they release agents, and agents are like autonomous AI, meaning that they can interact with you autonomously. And so 11 labs, I think it was two days ago, released this new agent function. So Mandy, who is starting to think about this, especially as a perspective of a parent, a former literacy teacher, created a vocab bot. So, Manny, do you want to take us through it?
01:05
Mandy DePriest
Yeah, I'll share my screen out so you can see what I did. So, not that we're advocating going straight out and creating these and passing them out to your students and having them interact with them. We still want to explore these tools and find out their limitations and capabilities. But thinking about what a potential application might be, as a literacy teacher, I was like, well, a vocabulary agent might be good. Something they could use to quickly define words that they encounter maybe during their independent reading, and they could quickly get a definition for. And so I went into their interface. I'm on the free account. And so everything I was able to create, I did for free. And they had some examples for me to look at, which I clicked on first.
01:46
Mandy DePriest
I recommend you do as well, because I saw how they set it up, and I was able to replicate that when I did mine. But when I went to create a new agent, which I did here with clicking the plus sign, it takes me to this interface. And everything is pretty well set up for you. You just have to kind of customize some of the information in the boxes. I didn't mess with a lot of this. I just went with the defaults. But I do want to show you a couple things that I put in. First, they give you space to put in the first message that you want the agent to say to the user. You can leave this blank if you want. The user to be able to initiate the conversation.
02:19
Mandy DePriest
But since this is a vocab bot, I had it say, hello, what word can I define for you today? Very friendly. And then you put in the system prompt. And again, this is where it was helpful to look at their examples because I had an idea of what it needed to look like. And actually, I still wasn't totally confident in my ability to write a good system prompt. So I went to ChatGPT and gave it. Here's an example of a system prompt to create an AI agent. Give me a version to make a vocabulary bot. And so this is what ChatGPT gave me. I made no changes. I just copied and pasted and dropped it right in and told it to be a helpful, engaging language assistant who could define words in terms that a typical ninth grader would understand.
02:57
Mandy DePriest
And I asked it to start with a simple definition, use it in a sentence, and find a way to compare it to something that a ninth grader might understand. There are some other things you can play with here. You can adjust the temperature or just the variability of the words. If you want it to be really creative and out there, you could go all the way to the end. You want it to be more basic and predictable. You could go down. I just kept it at the default, which was in the middle. And then you have this cool thing where you can upload a file or put in a URL to a website or just text that you want it to draw its knowledge from.
03:30
Mandy DePriest
So if you had like an existing vocabulary list or a study guide or a syllabus or something that you wanted students to be able to interact with verbally, you could attach that here and the agent would be able to have a conversation about it, which I think is pretty cool. But I didn't do that for this one. I just wanted to quickly see. See what it could do. So, Amanda, is there anything else you think we should cover before we try it out?
03:53
Amanda Bickerstaff
No, but I do love. It's like AI all the way down, where you use ChatGPT to help with the system prompt. So I think that. I think sometimes we try to, like, over engineer this, but if you're just trying it out, this is a great way to do it.
04:05
Mandy DePriest
Yes. All right, well, let's test it. So when I click test, it takes me to this cool graphic interface. And when I'm ready to start the conversation, I click call AI agent, and it should greet me with what I told it to say.
04:21
ElevenLabs AI Agent
Hello, what word can I define for you today?
04:24
Mandy DePriest
What does the word quixotic mean?
04:28
ElevenLabs AI Agent
Quixotic means to be idealistic and impractical, often in a way that's considered unrealistic or foolish. It's like someone who dreams of being a superhero but doesn't actually have any superpowers. For example, you might say it was a quixotic dream to think that they could build a spaceship in their backyard.
04:45
Amanda Bickerstaff
I mean, I would like to build a spaceship in my backyard.
04:49
Mandy DePriest
Well, that would be very quixotic of you.
04:50
Amanda Bickerstaff
I would. I would say that it's super interesting. And like, I actually. I think that it did a really good job of picking, like, a. Something to apply it to, like a contextual clue, which is really interesting. Can we try it out again where we, like, see if it can quiz us?
05:08
Mandy DePriest
Yes, let's give it a shot. I'm starting a new conversation, so it's probably going to want to start with defining the word again, but let's see if we can take it further with quizzing.
05:17
ElevenLabs AI Agent
Hello. What word can I define for you today?
05:20
Mandy DePriest
Can you quiz me on the meaning of the word quixotic?
05:24
ElevenLabs AI Agent
Sure, I can help you with that. Let's see if you know what quixotic means. Imagine a character in a story who is very idealistic and believes in things that are probably impossible, like trying to fight windmills because they think they are giants. That's a good example of someone who is quixotic. Now, I'll give you a few scenarios and you tell me if they describe someone who is quixotic. Ready?
05:49
Mandy DePriest
Yes.
05:51
ElevenLabs AI Agent
Okay, here's the first scenario. A young artist believes that they can change the world with their art, even though they haven't had much success yet. Do you think this artist is quixotic?
06:02
Mandy DePriest
No. I'm sure they believe in themselves and they're very talented.
06:06
ElevenLabs AI Agent
That's true. They have a strong belief in their abilities. But is their belief in changing the world with their art a bit unrealistic or do you think it's possible? Remember, a quixotic person believes in things that might be impossible. Think about it for a moment.
06:22
Mandy DePriest
I'm going to stop.
06:24
Amanda Bickerstaff
Really philosophical.
06:26
Mandy DePriest
We went deep with that one, didn't we?
06:28
Amanda Bickerstaff
Oh, my goodness. Now I'm like sitting here and I'm like, is changing. But I do actually think that's really interesting, though, of, like, being able to put that into perspective. It is. I think that the thing that is so interesting about this moment in time is that we've done this a couple times and that's the first time it took this approach because of that temperature and Variability, but it is unpredictable, which is why we would not suggest to do this without like a lot of supports or making sure it's transparent.
06:58
Amanda Bickerstaff
I know Mandy was talking about, we did a session earlier this week that if you're going to use this, maybe it's something that sits next to the teacher and a kid can come up and have that conversation so that you can overhear it if you do want to kind of test it out in this early form. But I do think it's really fascinating about where we're going. Like, we know that with the advent of like Alexas and Siri's and smartphones that young people are really using voice more than they're using text. And the fact that this is something that's a modality, meaning we're going to have to do more work around text based, you know, learning and expression is a really interesting way to meet kids where they are, but also again, always around accessibility. Right.
07:37
Amanda Bickerstaff
Like dyslexic students or people, those that are struggling with language differences. This could be really unique and impactful. Mandy, I mean, what do you think?
07:47
Mandy DePriest
I could see this as a safe way to practice oral language skills for say people who are learning English as a second language or like if they have a neurodivergence where they need to practice oral interactions in like a safe, non judgmental space. Still obviously wanting to have those authentic interactions as well. But just to have another tool in your belt is always helpful, right?
08:11
Amanda Bickerstaff
Yeah. And that's patient. I mean the. One of the things that's really interesting about AI is that because it is not a person, right? Like the, it can be pretty like you could ask the same question. You can ask for Quixotic like a hundred times and it's going to give you a hundred different approaches. Like it's not going to start to like bail because of our, you know, sometimes we get frustrated or elect patients or we just don't have enough time. So there's some really unique opportunities. And I just want to say like, you know, it is such a unique time where we are actually pretty conservative around student use. And we talk about this a lot, but we do think that this can have like we're going to start to see more and more impact of these tools, especially speech tools.
08:49
Amanda Bickerstaff
Text to text. I mean text to speech to speech that are going to become more and more prevalent as these tools get more sophisticated. So I just think it's really cool. And if you want to create your own manny, just talk about maybe the bot you created for your son and then we'll wrap it up.
09:04
Mandy DePriest
I did want to share that one. So speaking of, like, voice dependency and things, so I was thinking of other applications. And my son, who is 13, is just terrible at talking on the phone. Like, he goes to virtual school and his teachers call him all the time, and he doesn't know how to do a proper greeting or how to answer questions fluidly or things like that. It's just. So I decided to try to make one that would help him practice phone conversations with me. I don't just set him on it. And so I came in to the plus to create a new one, and I gave it this prompt. You're again from ChatGPT. You're a friendly virtual phone conversation coach. And went through a session yesterday, and it was amazing.
09:47
Mandy DePriest
I told, you're doing this every day until you learn how to talk fluently on the phone. Because it was so patient with him. Like I said, he is not skilled at it currently, he's not confident talking on the phone. And so it would simulate a conversation and then give him feedback. It would say, you know, that was great, you did a greeting, but next time try introducing yourself. You know, things like that. It did ask him, because it was simulating a customer service interaction. Like, if he were calling a bookstore about a book, it asked him for his phone number and address the way a real bookstore clerk might. And I was on hand to say, no, don't. Don't give it that. So, you know, you definitely want to have some good AI literacy there and some understandings about privacy.
10:28
Mandy DePriest
But still, the implications of the tool are really exciting. I think it's amazing.
10:33
Amanda Bickerstaff
Yeah. So why don't we come off share so we can say. Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, as always, like, we. I mean, I started AI for education as a place to, like, share what I was learning back last year. And, like, we still will do that. And so I would love. We'd love to, like, if you decide that you want to watch this and try it out, let us know how it goes. But also, like, we think that this is an opportunity to, like, just practice and play and try out these things now, because it's all being developed and in this moment and no one is an expert, really.
11:00
Amanda Bickerstaff
And so this idea of being able to go and, like, try it out and like, Mandy's, that use case that you have about your, you know, your young person being able to maybe build some confidence, like, that's awesome. I mean, I started teaching and every time I talked I got, like, hives. I was so, like, I had so much anxiety around speaking, which is hysterical, what's happened now. But to have something that be patient, like, that would be really interesting. So what we hope is that you enjoy this kind of walkthrough with us, but also just try it out, hang out, see what works. It won't be free forever, but it's free right now, and we'd love to know how you do it. So thanks, everybody. We appreciate you, and we'll see you next time.Description text goes here
