This brief review will look at the online discussion tool powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), Parlay. Parlay describes itself as, “an AI-powered instructional platform that helps teachers facilitate meaningful, measurable, and inclusive class discussions” (ParlayIdeas, 2024). Parlay, also known as ParlayIdeas as identified within its URL, is a discussion-based platform aimed towards educators looking to facilitate written and verbal discussions within their learning environment. Parlay offers educators a library of over 4,000 various discussion topics available to educators, designed by the team themself in addition to other teachers within the Parlay community (ParlayIdeas, 2024). Based on the type of discussion the educator is aiming to administer, options are provided to allow students to follow along throughout the discussion to track their own responses, the responses of their peers, and also receive real-time feedback from the teacher facilitating the discussion. The platform also focuses highly on their AI tool “Parlay Genie” which is advertised as “Your AI Teaching Assistant,” offering AI-generating questions, feedback, transcriptions, and even assessment (ParlayIdeas, 2024). Parlay offers a free account in addition to their “Teacher License”, though the free account only permits a limiting three “roundtables.” 

When signing into Parlay for the first time, the user is immediately provided with “Sample Roundtable Discussions,” both verbal and written, to expose the user to the various discussion formats. On the left-side of the homescreen, users can identify several tabs including “Recent Rountables,” “My Courses,” and “Parlay Universe.” The Parlay Universe acts as a hub for the library for discussion topics which vary in topic, content, and grade level. When creating a “roundtable,” the user is offered customizable options including a rubric which is able to adjust the criteria of the educator. The settings also allow for customizable sentence stems available for students to support sentence and discussion structure. The settings even provide options for “automatic turns,” and “audio/video functionality,” to support discussion formats administered virtually. These settings are straight-forward though the user interface of the discussion offers little-to-no customization outside of providing one image as a cover photo to the discussion. 

Perhaps the highlight of Parlay is the AI tools, functionality, and intuition regarding the discussions. Verbal and written discussion formats offer data summaries including the participation rate of students, the various types of contributions made by participants, as well as a “chord diagram” which highlights how often participants responded to other participants. An AI-generated “word cloud” is also generated throughout discussion identifying the most commonly used words throughout the discussion. Verbal discussions specifically offer a transcription tool which uses the computers’ microphones to generate a transcription of the conversation. This allows participants to track the conversation as it is happening, though the tool can often mis-identify words periodically throughout the conversation. Through these intuitive tools advertised by the platform I am left with this question: Do these tools and features designed to support student growth in written and verbal discussion improve student engagement, self-confidence, and motivation to participate in classroom discussions? Further, does this platform enable educators to better facilitate in-person discussions or create new challenges when facilitating discussions in the classroom? 

References
Parlay ideas. Parlay Ideas. (2025). https://parlayideas.com/how-it-works/