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<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\nBoston University Medical Campus EdTech began piloting the Gen AI Tutor Chatbot, Noodle Factory, in Fall 2024. The pilot concluded in June 2025, but the tool remains available for use. Integrated securely within Blackboard, Noodle Factory supports teaching and learning through AI-powered tutoring features.<\/p>\n
First-year costs are covered by departments, and anyone interested in exploring its features or learning more about pricing can contact\u00a0<\/span>edtechhelp@bu.edu<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n This page highlights current use cases and ideas for future applications.<\/p>\n Use Case #1 (Fall 2024)<\/strong><\/p>\n Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Graduate Medical Sciences Behavioral Health Program Associate Director of Clinical Training, Jonathan Waldo, LMHC<\/a><\/p>\n Students in the class used the AI chatbot to ask questions about the subject matter,\u00a0and increase their AI literacy by guiding them to think about AI’s ethical implications on mental health education.<\/p>\n Student quote: Instructor quote:<\/strong> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/span><\/p>\n Use Case #2:<\/strong> (Fall 2024)<\/strong><\/p>\n Henry Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Asst. Dean, Clinical Affairs and Associate Clinical Professor, Afsheen Lakhani, DMD<\/a><\/p>\n In this use case, the tool was customized as ‘Tooth Talks’ and used by students transitioning from pre-clinic work to clinical settings, to save time on questions repeatedly asked of clinical faculty. Students retrieve answers faster with the tool and save time for faculty who don\u2019t need to be consulted for many questions.<\/p>\n Student feedback: <\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI used Tooth Talks lately and was amazed to see the software has answers to almost all clinic-related questions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a very useful tool, and we believe we will benefit from it.\u201d<\/p>\n Faculty feedback:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cTooth Talks has been a valuable learning tool for students, providing answers to most clinic-related questions. However, getting accurate information from video lectures\/sessions would be important. Also, ability to incorporate clinical scenarios, patient provider communication type videos or scenarios to teach students would enhance the benefit of this tool.\u201d<\/p>\n As a follow up from EdTech: we plan to help this group add transcripts from video as a source for the tool and the vendor now has speech recognition capabilities recently release and has video recognition<\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/span><\/p>\n Use Case #3 (Spring 2025)<\/strong><\/p>\n Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Associate Dean for Digital Learning and Innovation, Program Director for Post-professional OTD & Clinical Professor Karen Jacobs, OT, EdD<\/a><\/p>\n This use case is a great example of how quickly an instructor can link the tool to their course and start using it. Karen met with an Educational Technologist to guide her through linking and quick setup one day and introduced it to her students, who began interacting with the tool for Q&A the very next day.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 31 of 42 students asked the AI Tutor questions! Example<\/strong>: Multiple students asked the chatbot the question “What is entrepreneurship?” and based on instructor content linked to the chatbot from the course, the following answer was provided.<\/p>\n “Entrepreneurship is defined as the process where a person organizes, operates, and assumes the risk of a business venture.\u00b9 Entrepreneurs are individuals who recognize opportunities and are willing to take the necessary risks to develop those opportunities.\u00b2 They may or may not be innovators, but they are always experimenters.”<\/p>\n **Superscript in response cites source document provided by the course instructor**<\/em><\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/span><\/p>\n Apart from multiple additional use cases, such as using the tool as a study aid and for exam preparation in various courses, another interesting planned use case is for curriculum mapping for accreditation purposes. One accredited program is considering loading all of their curricular content for their entire program into an internal Blackboard site, then using the tool to query and map to all required topics. This will be one way to easily see exactly where particular topics are covered and provide insight into any redundancy or gaps in coverage.<\/p>\n Boston University Medical Campus EdTech began piloting the Gen AI Tutor Chatbot, Noodle Factory, in Fall 2024. The pilot concluded in June 2025, but the tool remains available for use. Integrated securely within Blackboard, Noodle Factory supports teaching and learning through AI-powered tutoring features. First-year costs are covered by departments, and anyone interested in exploring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23914,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/edtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/549"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/edtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/edtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/edtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23914"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/edtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549"}],"version-history":[{"count":47,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/edtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":572,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/edtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/549\/revisions\/572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/edtech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Hear what students and faculty have to say about Noodle Factory’s Walter AI Chatbot.<\/h3>\n![\"Faculty](\"\/edtech\/files\/2025\/02\/Picture1.png\")
<\/p>\nJohn Waldo: Increasing AI Literacy<\/h3>
<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>\u201cThis AI project was very fascinating to me and I felt I learned a lot about the use of AI within the mental health field.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI think a shift from specific output (in many cases) toward an effort to develop skills and capacities (despite those targets being more difficult to objectively assess), addresses most concerns about AI in education. If we step away from a focus on product\/output as educators, and reassess why we are asking for that product \u2013 what are the skills, capacities, and knowledge bases we intend to develop with the students \u2013 we can shift to embracing AI as a tool in the educational process, rather than an obstacle. An epistemological perspective, and not an easy shift, to say the least.”<\/p>\nAfsheen Lakhani: Tooth Talks Clinical Setting Prep<\/h3>
<\/span><\/p>\nKaren Jacobs: Simple Set up<\/h3>
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\n<\/span><\/p>\nAdditional\/upcoming use cases:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
For more information on the tool\u2019s functions and instructions visit our GenAI resource<\/span><\/a> page and\/or email edtechhelp@bu.edu<\/a><\/span> and BUMC IT EdTech Director, Jana Mulkern, EdD jmulkern@bu.edu<\/a>.<\/span><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"