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Getting Started and FAQs

Getting Started

To start using Benny, your school must: 

  1. Have a Premium Beanstack subscription (through either your school or district)
  2. Opt in with your Client Success Manager
  3. Have a log warning level set on your Beanstack site

Once Book Talks with Benny is on for your site, students will be prompted by Benny when they log a flagged reading session (i.e., the number of minutes logged is above the sites warning level). Benny will engage the student in a light, friendly conversation about their logged book and ask open-ended questions that adjust to the student’s responses.

After the conversation is over, teachers and librarians can review a conversation by navigating to the Classes and Readers page, clicking Students, and then selecting Flagged Entries. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Will Book Talks with Benny turn on automatically for my school or do we have to opt in?

No, schools and districts must opt in to begin using Benny, and only schools or districts with a Premium subscription have access to Benny.

If Benny is appearing for your students and you did not request this, your district point-of-contact has opted-in to Book Talks with Benny. Please reach out to them for more information. If you would like to turn this feature off please reach out to your Client Success Manager.

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When does Benny appear for a student?

Benny appears if:

  • A student has logged above the site’s log warning level
  • The student is in grade 3 or above
  • The student is not verified
  • The student is logging a Lexile title. 

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What happens if a student makes a typo?

In our experience, Benny is generally able to recognize most typos when given appropriate context and will respond accordingly.

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What happens if a student provides an incorrect answer to Benny?

If a student provides an answer that is incorrect, Benny simply continues asking deeper questions to gauge a student’s interest and level of understanding in the book. This means that the conversation with Benny follows the context of previous answers.

On the administrator side, Benny simply flags any answers based on a specific set of criteria (i.e., an unintelligible or gibberish response, a block of copied-and-pasted text, etc.). Benny does not assess student responses for correctness.

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What happens if a student is not willing to engage with Benny?

If a student wants to stop engaging with Benny, they may end the conversation early by clicking the “End Conversation” button.

If a student responds inappropriately to Benny, Benny will end the conversation after approximately 3-4 inappropriate or unengaged messages.

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What happens if Benny doesn’t know a title?

Benny is only available for titles with a Lexile level present in Beanstack, and we update Lexile information on a monthly basis. If Benny does not know a title, Benny will not appear for the student.

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When does Benny end the conversation?

Benny ends the conversation under 3 conditions:

  1. The student chooses to end the conversation by clicking the “End Conversation” button.
  2. The student completes a conversation with Benny, and Benny wishes them farewell. This occurs after approximately 6-10 messages.
  3. The student responds inappropriately for approximately 3-4 responses in a row.
  4. The student is inactive in the window for 10 or more minutes.

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What age or grade range is Benny available for?

Benny is available for grades 3 and up.

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What languages does Benny speak?

Benny was designed and tested in English. However, if a student engages Benny in another language, Benny may interact with students in that language.

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Does Benny support text-to-speech?

At this time, Benny does not support text-to-speech, but our team has considered this use case and is actively investigating options. We would love to hear more about any tools your school or district uses that support text-to-speech!

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How do you ensure Benny is safe and appropriate for students?

To ensure conversations with Benny are safe and appropriate for students, we trained Benny to recognize and not engage with inappropriate responses. This includes messages that contain swear words or explicit content.
Inappropriate content also includes discriminatory language that treats others unfairly or unkindly because of who they are, including their race or ethnicity, disability, and sex, gender, or sexual orientation.
Benny will respond to statements about a student’s feelings or well-being by gently redirecting the conversation to the book talk and, where appropriate, encouraging the student to seek out appropriate support.

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Is Book Talks with Benny aligned with COPPA and FERPA regulations?

Beanstack does not share any student PII with third-party services, including OpenAI or Anthropic. The messages students send to Benny are stored in our database and are shared either with:

1. OpenAI via the Responses API

2. Anthropic via Amazon Bedrock

According to their privacy policy, OpenAI and Anthropic will not use any data passed to Benny to train any new or existing models. To confirm that OpenAI’s and Anthropic's policies are in compliance with your school or district, you can find more information in the resources below:

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What AI model does Benny use?

Book Talks with Benny is powered using OpenAI’s model GPT-4o mini and Anthropic's model Claude Haiku 4.5.

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How was Benny trained?

Benny was created and trained using input from former and current educators, and we’re continuing to gather feedback. Our team has done extensive testing to confirm that Benny embodies our company’s values of “love, inclusion, and awesomeness.”

To learn more about our practices around AI, please refer to our AI Ethics Statement: https://www.beanstack.com/ai-statement

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Is there an extra cost associated with Benny?

Benny is available for all schools and districts with a Premium Beanstack subscription at no additional cost. Schools and districts with a Plus or Essential subscription can reach out to their Client Success Manager to inquire about an upgrade.

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