Let Chessto take the lead in the learning process (Release News #2)

I love Chessto! Can we have more of him? Immediately since his introduction 10 months ago, our little AI robot Chessto has been a huge hit. Good news: Chessity's September 2018 release takes our virtual chess teacher to the next level. In this blog post we dig deeper into how Chessto eases the lives of chess learners and teachers.

As a teacher, your life is busy. Whether you are preparing lesson plans for your math classes, or grading writing papers, or wondering how to help a struggling student succeed – your workday flows over with things you have to do but for which there never seems enough time.

That’s why we created Chessto.

We can't add time to your day. But we can add Chessto.

Although it’s impossible to add more hours, Chessto helps you to use the time you have more efficiently.

Chessto: artificial intelligence in chess education

For those of you who are new to Chessity or have missed it -  Chessto is this cute litte robot:

But there's a lot more to him than his friendly appearance. On the inside he is filled to the brim with artificial intelligence that teaches and trains users during practise or play by delivering tips and advice based on their personal chess level and user data. This application of aritificial intellingence in chess education was developed by Chessity and is unique in the world. 

Chessto's super chess teaching features:

✓ he is a talking robot: great for young learners and poor readers

✓ his instructions are 100% adaptive: a differentiated approach for each student

✓ he's funny: kids love his little jokes

✓ he's infinitely patient!

Chessto was introduced in November 2017, as a virtual chess teacher that coaches students during a game of chess. Immediately a huge success with teachers and students, we have worked hard to expand Chessto's role in the learning process in Chessity. For Chessto enables teachers who feel unqualified to teach chess or cannot play chess themselves to include scholastic chess in the curriculum. Besides, it has made chess teaching scalable (one teacher can mentor more children at the same time).

Thanks to Chessto, kids learn chess so effectively, that they need fewer lessons to achieve the same chess skills.

More effective learning

For students, especially children, it is simply great to be helped by Chessto; exactly with the things they find difficult or don't quite understand yet. Just as often as is necessary and in the way that this individual student learns the most from. Thanks to Chessto, kids learn chess so effectively, that they need fewer lessons to achieve the same chess skills. This has enabled us to put together a concise chess curriculum of 6 levels, all of which consist of 40 lessons, ensuring speedy progress and a classroom atmosphere of fun, competence en fulfilment.

Thus, Chessto - as small and cheerful as he is - is a very powerful and innovative tool. While the children learn independently with high-quality instructions from Chessto and feedback from the program, the teacher has plenty of time for personal attention to individual learners. This can take the form of chess instruction (chess trainers) or coaching children in their learning process (teachers), or both.

This is what Chessto does:

1. Explaining and teaching

How does a knight move? Can a queen make long moves? And how do you take an opponent's piece without losing one of your own pieces? In the lessons, Chessto acts as a virtual chess teacher that helps children learn how to play chess.

Chessto also plays a prominent role in teaching and practicing checkmate and defending against mate. Not only does he help the children to understand the concept of 'mate' properly, he also activates prior knowledge in a structured way. This makes it easier to process and remember the new information. Children learn to automate the thinking steps, so that they can better apply the lessons they have learned in their chess games.

Each learner gets his own, individual instruction and help, adapted to his personal level of skill. If a child has a hard time, Chessto breaks up the new skill into small (or even smaller) steps. For students who are learning easily, learning steps may be skipped (or no instruction is given at all, if the student is up to it.)

Chessto doesn't mind explaining things three times, ten times, or even twenty times. He never loses his patience and is always helpful and cheerful. However, the robot has deliberately been programmed in such a way that children cannot sit back and let Chessto do the work.

2. Coaching during a game 

Chessto is full of sophisticated artificial intelligence. As soon as children are able to play a real game of chess, it helps them during their games with tips and advice based on their personal level of chess and user data.

Chessto teaches them proper opening strategies and what choices they have to make in the different phases of a chess game. Think of aspects like developing pieces, castling and king safety, and attacking safely. Always at the right time, focused on the individual learning objective of the user, while Chessto adapts to the level of the user.

In short, Chessto offers truly customized learning. The focus is on what it is all about: the chess student.

Our user data shows that the chess level of children improves spectacularly in a very short period of time. After half an hour of playing chess with Chessto, the effect is already measurable!