Speech-enabled games for vocabulary acquisition in a foreign language

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-85).In this thesis, I present two novel ways in which speech recognition technology might aid students with vocabulary acquisition in a foreign language. While research in the applied linguistics field of second language acquisition (SLA) increasingly suggests that students of a foreign language should learn through meaningful interactions carried out in that language, teachers are rarely equipped with tools that allow them to provide interactive environments outside of the classroom. Fortunately, speech and language technologies are becoming robust enough to aid in this regard. This thesis presents two distinct speech-enabled systems to assist students with the difficult task of vocabulary acquisition in Mandarin Chinese. At the core of each system is a Mandarin speech recognizer that, when connected to a web-based graphical user interface, provides students with an interactive environment in which to acquire new Mandarin vocabulary.by Ian C. McGraw.S.M

Applied Creativity: Tools Toward Transformation: An Undergraduate Curriculum

The greatest barrier to creative thinking may be the current definition. If creativity is believed to be an unconscious, undefinable process, a competitive and comparative hierarchy or even limited to specific domains, then the pursuit of creativity may be seen as an overwhelming endeavor. I believe everyone is creative, not just a few “out of the box” individuals. We are not limited to sleeping on a problem or getting into a relaxed, happy state in order to enhance creative thinking. I also believe that creative and critical thinking can be applied to teach creativity so I am offering an innovative curriculum for my new theory. Like Roger Von Oech, I believe that there is a “team” within us that personifies our four kinds of creativity. By adapting a systems thinking management model, the four kinds of creativity that I believe we can incrementally increase and use are as follows: inventor, pioneer, engineer and diplomat. We may have preferences or more fully developed one of these multiple creativities, but I believe all four are present and are equally important—these are not styles or dispositions that can be separated or ranked. It is not enough to invent ideas, we need to have the complementary skills to implement, refine and share them as well. To teach practical and self-actualized creativity beyond brainstorming, individual and collaborative activities must be utilized along with appreciative inquiry and ethical service. Through “adopting, adapting and creating” thinking tools, creativity can be accessible and fully realized in any person or situation. Because the Critical and Creativity Thinking program at UMass Boston transformed my creativity, this is my effort to thank them and do the same

Advanced techniques for personalized, interactive question answering

Using a computer to answer questions has been a human dream since the beginning of the digital era. A first step towards the achievement of such an ambitious goal is to deal with naturallangilage to enable the computer to understand what its user asks. The discipline that studies the conD:ection between natural language and the represen~ tation of its meaning via computational models is computational linguistics. According to such discipline, Question Answering can be defined as the task that, given a question formulated in natural language, aims at finding one or more concise answers in the form of sentences or phrases. Question Answering can be interpreted as a sub-discipline of information retrieval with the added challenge of applying sophisticated techniques to identify the complex syntactic and semantic relationships present in text. Although it is widely accepted that Question Answering represents a step beyond standard infomiation retrieval, allowing a more sophisticated and satisfactory response to the user's information needs, it still shares a series of unsolved issues with the latter. First, in most state-of-the-art Question Answering systems, the results are created independently of the questioner's characteristics, goals and needs. This is a serious limitation in several cases: for instance, a primary school child and a History student may need different answers to the questlon: When did, the Middle Ages begin? Moreover, users often issue queries not as standalone but in the context of a wider information need, for instance when researching a specific topic. Although it has recently been proposed that providing Question Answering systems with dialogue interfaces would encourage and accommodate the submission of multiple related questions and handle the user's requests for clarification, interactive Question Answering is still at its early stages: Furthermore, an i~sue which still remains open in current Question Answering is that of efficiently answering complex questions, such as those invoking definitions and descriptions (e.g. What is a metaphor?). Indeed, it is difficult to design criteria to assess the correctness of answers to such complex questions. .. These are the central research problems addressed by this thesis, and are solved as follows. An in-depth study on complex Question Answering led to the development of classifiers for complex answers. These exploit a variety of lexical, syntactic and shallow semantic features to perform textual classification using tree-~ernel functions for Support Vector Machines. The issue of personalization is solved by the integration of a User Modelling corn': ponent within the the Question Answering model. The User Model is able to filter and fe-rank results based on the user's reading level and interests. The issue ofinteractivity is approached by the development of a dialogue model and a dialogue manager suitable for open-domain interactive Question Answering. The utility of such model is corroborated by the integration of an interactive interface to allow reference resolution and follow-up conversation into the core Question Answerin,g system and by its evaluation. Finally, the models of personalized and interactive Question Answering are integrated in a comprehensive framework forming a unified model for future Question Answering research

Illocutionary Act in The Ellen Degenerates Show (Episode Adam Levines’s New Girlfriend)

The researcher as the main instrument took note-taking in collecting and evaluating data based on the theory used of Searle (1969). As for the results, the findings showed a total of 68 data and 4 types of illocutionary acts used in Ellen DeGeneres show. It summed 49 data of representative, 10 data of expressive, 7 data of directive and 2 data of commissive types. The researcher does not find declaration in the dialogue because there is no utterance that has function that can change the world or the status of people through speaker’s utterance

No One is an Island: Student Experiences of a Catholic High School Curriculum Response to Bullying, Based on Themes from the Writings of Thomas Merton

This dissertation was an explorative study of student experiences of a first-iteration Catholic curriculum created to respond to the epidemic of adolescent bullying, from an expansive and holistic perspective (Huggins, 2016). The curriculum used in this study was inspired by themes from the writings of Thomas Merton (1915-1968) a Catholic monk, Civil Rights activist, inter-religious bridge, and non-violent resistor (Merton, 1975; Merton, 1983; Merton, 1989). This qualitative study utilized the methodology of educational criticism and connoisseurship (Uhrmacher, Moroye, & Flinders, 2017) using the Christian Humanistic ethic as a lens to examine and explain the emergent theological themes of the students’ engagement and shared interpretations of the first iteration 10-day curriculum. The curriculum utilized activities surrounding the themes of order, balance, rhythm, and harmony as the path to happiness, as stated in No Man Is an Island(Merton, 1983). Through the use of reflective dialogues, meditation, and kinesthetic learning opportunities such as a drum circle and a collaborative game, the students explored the importance of self-discovery, unity, group dynamics, and healthy communication skills as a positive response to bullying, stigmatization, and peer isolation. Through the activities and open-ended reflections four overarching themes emerged from the students’ shared experiences of the curriculum: a) all humanity has worth and value; b) it is essential to develop common ground with others; c) peace and calm are better avenues to resolve conflict than aggression and anger; and d) happiness is found beyond mere material possessions

Документация по Moodle 2.5. Ч. 1-4

Текст парал. англ., рус.Содерж.: Ч. 1: О системе Moodle. Ч. 2: Инсталляция Moodle для Windows. Ч. 3: Управление сайтом Moodle. Ч. 4: Управление курсом Moodle. Презентация перевода на русский язык документации по Moodle 2.5 / сост. переводчик В. А. Тунд

How and Why to Read and Create Children's Digital Books

How and Why to Read and Create Children's Digital Books outlines effective ways of using digital books in early years and primary classrooms, and specifies the educational potential of using digital books and apps in physical spaces and virtual communities. With a particular focus on apps and personalised reading, Natalia Kucirkova combines theory and practice to argue that personalised reading is only truly personalised when it is created or co-created by reading communities. Divided into two parts, Part I suggests criteria to evaluate the educational quality of digital books and practical strategies for their use in the classroom. Specific attention is paid to the ways in which digital books can support individual children’s strengths and difficulties, digital literacies, language and communication skills. Part II explores digital books created by children, their caregivers, teachers and librarians, and Kucirkova also offers insights into how smart toys, tangibles and augmented/virtual reality tools can enrich children’s reading for pleasure

Proceedings of the African Diaspora Conference on Sustainable Development

The authors urge the Western donor organizations to facilitate and support the take up of such more sustainable models