Vol. 14, No. 1, March 1998

Computer-assisted learning of Chinese idioms

R.W.P. Luk, Hong Kong Polytechnic University & A.B.Y. Ng, City University of Hong Kong

Email: csrluk@comp.polyu.edu.hk

Chinese idioms play an important role in Chinese vocabulary learning as well as having cultural and social functions. However, researchers found that Hong Kong students seldom use idioms. Not only are students writing characters incorrectly, they are using the idioms both incorrectly and inappropriately. A survey was conducted to examine the attitudes of Hong Kong students and teachers to learning Chinese idioms. According to the survey, primary teachers believed that computers can assist students in learning Chinese idioms more effectively than an idiom dictionary. Consequently, an experimental program for learning Chinese idioms was designed for students between 9 and 11 years old. As an evaluation, usability tests were carried out by interview and by survey. Both evaluations produced positive responses from the dependent and independent group of subjects which is an encouraging first step.

Keywords: CALL; Chinese idioms; Computer-aided vocabulary learning; Design methodology

Accepted: 10 April 1997

A method and tool for the design of educational multimedia material

E.J.R. Koper

Centre for Educational Technology, Open University of the Netherlands

Email: rob.koper@ouh.nl

This paper deals with the problem of the specification of the pedagogic design of interactive multimedia and specific telematics applications developed for use in education. A method to specify the design and a supporting tool (Shoc-tool) are described. The idea is that the use of such a method and tool can make the development process more efficient and can lead to a more professional approach to the pedagogic design of educational software in general. Resulting design specifications can be assessed for completeness, allow for comparisons among designs and are relatively easy to read for others than the designer himself. The method and the tool both stimulate the re-use of existing design and code segments. Shoc-tool is described along with several examples from real practice. The paper concludes with a discussion of the experience of its introduction and use.

Keywords: Multimedia; Object-oriented design; Pedagogic design

Accepted: 15 May 1997

Paradise Lost: Children, multimedia and the myth of interactivity

J. Robertson

Faculty of Education, University of Paisley

Email: robe-cs0@paisley.ac.uk

The dramatic expansion of IT use in the primary schools of South-West Scotland, in the mid-1980s, centred on highly interactive and pupil-empowering forms such as Logo or database management software. While later forms of IT in education which have come to dominate computer-use in the same area, such as multimedia encyclopaedias and 'living books', are worthwhile, their surface sophistication and information richness does not compensate for reduced interactivity levels and the consequent loss of learner engagement and control. The uncritical adoption of technological advances combined with reduced local authority resources to drive curriculum development have resulted in failure to embed one of the most radical educational initiatives of the late twentieth-century.

Keywords: CAL; Evaluation; Interactivity; IT; Primary; Technology

Accepted: 1 July 1997

Motivation and interface design: maximising learning opportunities

S. Stoney & M. Wild

Faculty of Business, Edith Cowan University

Email: s.stoney@cowan.edu.au

Instructional multimedia is creating a revolution in universities. Academic staff are being urged to transfer instruction to a format suitable for either CD/ROM and/or the Internet, principally the World Wide Web. Many, it seems, simply take their existing course materials, add image and sound without proper consideration of the nature of the medium in which they are seeking to instruct and present the product to their students. In essence, it appears they ignore the need to motivate their students to work with their instructional multimedia materials. It is a contention of this paper that the user-interface to instructional multimedia is strategically important: if it is poorly designed students will not be intrinsically motivated to make use of the product or to learn with it. Interfaces that motivate learners are realistic, easy to use, challenging and engaging. Superior interfaces have some of the elements of a game: they provide the user with a functional model of task, content and processes; they encourage exploration and engagement; and they demonstrate cognisance of design considerations such as interactivity, functionality, learner control and cognition.

Keywords: {{five or so keywords needed}}

Accepted: 1 August 1997

School programming as literacy: the case for BOXER

D. O'Reilly

Division of Education, University of Sheffield

Email: d.oreilly@sheffield.ac.uk

This paper considers the role of school programming in the light of the computational medium of Boxer. It argues that such programming should be regarded as a new form of literacy and as such, developed in concert with subject knowledge, and evaluated over the whole of schooling. It then give details of a two year research project in which a group of primary school children (aged 9-11) developed their understanding of number through programming in BOXER.

Keywords: BOXER; Iterative Design; Mathematics Education; New literacy; Primary; Programming

Accepted: 2 August 1997

Computer-based instruction in qualitative research practices

J S Busby & K Payne

International Ecotechnology Research Centre, Cranfield University

Email j.s.busby@cranfield.ac.uk

As a subject domain, qualitative research practice presents significant problems for instruction. It tends to be poorly codified and sometimes controversial. It is substantially skill-based and calls on a heterogeneous set of skills. And it is a means-domain rather than an end-domain for research students who invariably have widely varying disciplinary and experiential backgrounds when first coming to it. The experience of teaching the subject also suggests some important obstacles to learning good practices. For example, many of the underlying skills (like testing the self-interest of information sources) are skills developed in everyday life: yet new researchers often fail to transfer them to research work. This article describes an instructional system for qualitative research which is based on linking domain problems such as these to particular pedagogic mechanisms, and then linking these mechanisms in turn to various implementation decisions.

Keywords: Inductive learning; Qualitative research; Relational databases; Skill-based knowledge; Skill transfer

Accepted: 25 August 1997

Sustaining computer-mediated communication in university courses

K.J. Warren & R. Rada

School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Washington State University

Email: warren@wsu.edu

In the second of two graduate classes with the same title and content, the volume of on-line messages per person, in the four weeks sampled, was more than seven times higher than in the first. Between weeks 1-2 and weeks 5-6, the total number of messages per person dropped in the first class and rose in the second. Each class had a different computer-mediated communication (CMC) system and was given different guidelines for use. This paper analyses differences in volume and hypothesises a relationship between system characteristics, guidelines for use, and the perpetuation of verbal interaction in settings where CMC is mandated.

Keywords: Computer-mediated communication; Higher education; On-line message volume

Accepted: 20 October 1997