Multilingual Multimedia Thesaurus for Conservation and Restoration - Collaborative Networked Model of Construction

Standardization and systematization of terminology within the area of cultural heritage preservation in Croatia will be done by a construction of a model of multilingual multimedia thesaurus through collaboration of experts for conservation and restoration implying the participation of different competences in a community of practice in a network based environment by use of information technologies. A model of controlled dynamic vocabulary with hierarchically connected concepts will be constructed. The source language for thesaurus construction will be Italian, based on three basic relationships terms: equivalence, hierarchical and associative. The number of terms will be limited to cca. 500 preferred terms subdivided into hierarchies. The hypertextual and hypermedial thesaurus would be placed on a web for online browsing and upgrading. The multilingual lexical organization followed by multimedia presentations could be a benefit for the development of conservation and restoration profession in the field of cultural heritage preservation and for joining future European cultural projects. It could also play a significant role in the mobility initiatives aimed at study, conservation, restoration and the appreciation of historic and artistic heritage

Learning to Learn in a Digital Context: Language Learning Webtasks for an Autonomising “Wreading” Competence

In this paper we aim to analyse how language learning tasks can help students develop an autonomising wreading competence, i.e. a competence involving the ability to read online texts and to construct one’s own text by traversing sites. This competence involves different types of skills: technical skills of information elaboration and management, linguistic and semiotic skills, cognitive skills, and metacognitive skills. We consider, therefore, that the development of the wreading competence calls for a new approach to language learning, based on the joint development of autonomous learning and new literacies. Although new technologies provide quality resources and tools for teachers to design pedagogical environments which meet the principles of learner autonomy, ICT does not foster by itself autonomous learning (Villanueva, 2006). The promotion of learner autonomy requires carefully designed learning tasks aiming at a long-life learning process. The purpose of this paper is to put forward criteria for the design of language learning cybertasks that promote the development of new literacies applied to language learning autonom

Learning a Second Language for Specific Purposes within a Hypermedia Framework

This paper describes "A la Recherche d'un Emploi", ("Job Hunting") a hypermedia courseware teaching French for Specific Purposes and developed as part of the European CAMILLE project. "A la Recherche d'un Emploi" constitutes an early example of a task-based and problem-solving oriented software, which interweaves both linguistic and professional goals, on the one hand, and both theoretical knowledge and a hands-on approach, on the other. The paper looks firstly at the common features of the common features of the communicative and LSP approaches in Second Language Acquisition, and at the relevance of the use of hypermedia in the development of learning environments, from a theoretical standpoint. During the presentation of the courseware, our discussion has given rise to several general issues concerned with this type of software and with the more widely used large-scale hypermedia CALL software. These issues included: the relationships between linguistic contents and domain task, simulation activities, authenticity of material , linguistic and cultural resources, follow-up procedures of the learner's performances, etc. The courseware being presented, our attention was then directed to the manner in which the curriculum perspective should be integrated within the development of the CALL environment. Our methodology is explained throughout, from the planning phase and the learner's needs, through to an evaluation of the phase at its termination

Optical tomography: Image improvement using mixed projection of parallel and fan beam modes

Mixed parallel and fan beam projection is a technique used to increase the quality images. This research focuses on enhancing the image quality in optical tomography. Image quality can be defined by measuring the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Normalized Mean Square Error (NMSE) parameters. The findings of this research prove that by combining parallel and fan beam projection, the image quality can be increased by more than 10%in terms of its PSNR value and more than 100% in terms of its NMSE value compared to a single parallel beam

Public bookmarks and private benefits: An analysis of incentives in social computing

Users of social computing websites are both producers and consumers of the information found on the site. This creates a novel problem for web-based software applications: how can website designers induce users to produce information that is useful for others? We study this question by interviewing users of the social bookmarking website del.icio.us. We find that for the users in our sample, metadata reflecting who bookmarked a webpage better supports information seeking than free-form keyword metadata (tags). We explain this finding by describing differences in the way that the design of del.icio.us motivates users to contribute by providing personal benefits for bookmarking and tagging.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/61317/1/1450440240_ftp.pd

Visual Representations Is Lexical Learning Environments: Application To The Alexia System

Cognition-based arguments in support of using multimedia aids for the learning of vocabulary have so far offered only an imprecise, general framework. CALL experimentalists have also tried to establish the effectiveness of multimedia for vocabulary learning, but their attempts reveal that the underlying representations have not been clearly defined. After reviewing these points, we propose criteria for evaluating the quality of a visual representation in a lexical environment. These criteria are then used to discuss visual representations in paper and electronic dictionaries and in CALL environments. A kind of confusion has been made between multimedia and nonverbal knowledge. Hence visual representations are scarce and limited to concrete words. One way to extend multimedia in lexical learning is to rely on linguistic knowledge and build lexical networks. We present the ALEXIA system, a lexical learning environment for French as a second/foreign language. We detail its network module which can automatically build graphs of some lexical semantic relations. It is a first step for offering learners representations they can easily interpret. Visual representations which can cover a significant part of the lexicon are computable, extendable and interactive

Volume 45, 2022 Communication and Theatre Association of Minnesota Journal

Complete digitized volume (volume 45) of Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

El uso de las sitcoms para el aprendizaje cultural en el aula de idiomas: Un seminario para universitarios

This article examines the perceptions of EFL university students regarding an intercultural workshop that uses a sitcom (Master of None) as an instructional tool. Prior to detailing the workshop and the students’ assessment, this paper deals with the evolving role of culture in the English language classroom. Concentrating on cultural facts about English-speaking countries has proven insufficient for today’s world, where the vast majority of interactions happen among non-native speakers. Students need to work on developing skills and attitudes in order to become intercultural citizens. Even though language teaching has evolved to accommodate this shift in cultural perspective, textbooks, the backbone of language teaching, have remained almost unaffected by this change of paradigm. In this context, TV shows can be a dependable cultural training tool. Data obtained via a Likert-scale questionnaire show the participants’ appreciation for the workshop, and their highly positive perception of the acquisition of cultural knowledge and the development of attitudes and skills using this type of workshop.Este trabajo analiza las percepciones de un grupo de alumnos universitarios tras participar en un seminario de formación intercultural en el que se ha usado como herramienta pedagógica un episodio de la serie Master of None. Como paso previo a la exposición de los contenidos del seminario y a la evaluación que los propios alumnos han hecho del mismo, este artículo ha profundizado en la evolución del concepto de cultura dentro del ámbito de la enseñanza de lenguas extranjeras. La enseñanza de contenidos culturales referentes a países de lengua extranjera ya no es suficiente en el mundo global que habitamos, donde la mayoría de las interacciones en inglés tienen lugar entre hablantes no nativos de esta lengua. Los alumnos han de desarrollar una serie de habilidades y actitudes que les permitan convertirse en ciudadanos interculturales. A pesar de que la enseñanza de idiomas está tratando de acomodarse a este cambio de perspectiva cultural, los libros de texto, que conforman su columna vertebral, no han experimentado dicho cambio. En este contexto, las series de televisión pueden ser una eficiente herramienta de formación cultural. Los resultados de la evaluación, extraídos de un cuestionario de escala Likert, muestran que los participantes muestran interés por este tipo de actividad y que su percepción es muy positiva en lo que se refiere a la adquisición de conocimientos y el desarrollo de actitudes y habilidades culturales

EL USO DE LAS "SITCOMS" PARA EL APRENDIZAJE CULTURAL EN EL AULA DE IDIOMAS: UN SEMINARIO PARA UNIVERSITARIOS

This article examines the perceptions of EFL university students regarding an intercultural workshop that uses a sitcom (Master of None) as an instructional tool. Prior to detailing the workshop and the students’ assessment, this paper deals with the evolving role of culture in the English language classroom. Concentrating on cultural facts about English-speaking countries has proven insufficient for today’s world, where the vast majority of interactions happen among non-native speakers. Students need to work on developing skills and attitudes in order to become intercultural citizens. Even though language teaching has evolved to accommodate this shift in cultural perspective, textbooks, the backbone of language teaching, have remained almost unaffected by this change of paradigm. In this context, TV shows can  be a dependable cultural training tool. Data obtained via a Likert-scale questionnaire show the participants’ appreciation for the workshop, and their highly positive perception of the acquisition of cultural knowledge and the development of attitudes and skills using this type of workshop.Este trabajo analiza las percepciones de un grupo de alumnos universitarios tras participar en un seminario de formación intercultural en el que se ha usado como herramienta pedagógica un episodio de la serie Master of None. Como paso previo a la exposición de los contenidos del seminario y a la evaluación que los propios alumnos han hecho del mismo, este artículo ha profundizado en la evolución del concepto de cultura dentro del ámbito de la enseñanza de lenguas extranjeras. La enseñanza de contenidos culturales referentes a países de lengua extranjera ya no es suficiente en el mundo global que habitamos, donde la mayoría de las interacciones en inglés tienen lugar entre hablantes no nativos de esta lengua. Los alumnos han de desarrollar una serie de habilidades y actitudes que les permitan convertirse en ciudadanos interculturales. A pesar de que la enseñanza de idiomas está tratando de acomodarse a este cambio de perspectiva cultural, los libros de texto, que conforman su columna vertebral, no han experimentado dicho cambio. En este contexto, las series de televisión pueden ser una eficiente herramienta de formación cultural. Los resultados de la evaluación, extraídos de un cuestionario de escala Likert, muestran que los participantes muestran interés por este tipo de actividad y que su percepción es muy positiva en lo que se refiere a la adquisición de conocimientos y el desarrollo de actitudes y habilidades culturales.This article examines the perceptions of EFL university students regarding an intercultural workshop that uses a sitcom (Master of None) as an instructional tool. Prior to detailing the workshop and the students’ assessment, this paper deals with the evolving role of culture in the English language classroom. Concentrating on cultural facts about English-speaking countries has proven insufficient for today’s world, where the vast majority of interactions happen among non-native speakers. Students need to work on developing skills and attitudes in order to become intercultural citizens. Even though language teaching has evolved to accommodate this shift in cultural perspective, textbooks, the backbone of language teaching, have remained almost unaffected by this change of paradigm. In this context, TV shows can  be a dependable cultural training tool. Data obtained via a Likert-scale questionnaire show the participants’ appreciation for the workshop, and their highly positive perception of the acquisition of cultural knowledge and the development of attitudes and skills using this type of workshop