NuzzleBug: Debugging Block-Based Programs in Scratch

While professional integrated programming environments support developers with advanced debugging functionality, block-based programming environments for young learners often provide no support for debugging at all, thus inhibiting debugging and preventing debugging education. In this paper we introduce NuzzleBug, an extension of the popular block-based programming environment Scratch that provides the missing debugging support. NuzzleBug allows controlling the executions of Scratch programs with classical debugging functionality such as stepping and breakpoints, and it is an omniscient debugger that also allows reverse stepping. To support learners in deriving hypotheses that guide debugging, NuzzleBug is an interrogative debugger that enables to ask questions about executions and provides answers explaining the behavior in question. In order to evaluate NuzzleBug, we survey the opinions of teachers, and study the effects on learners in terms of debugging effectiveness and efficiency. We find that teachers consider NuzzleBug to be useful, and children can use it to debug faulty programs effectively. However, systematic debugging requires dedicated training, and even when NuzzleBug can provide correct answers learners may require further help to comprehend faults and necessary fixes, thus calling for further research on improving debugging techniques and the information they provide.Comment: To appear at the 2024 IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE '24), April 14--20, 2024, Lisbon, Portuga

“That Is Not the Question I Put to You, Officer”: An Analysis of Student Legal Interpreting Errors

Court interpreting is a challenging and highly skilled profession. Legal questions are designed to achieve a large variety of functions. Often the true function is not the most obvious, the meaning is not literal, or there is no direct lexical or grammatical equivalent in the target language. Preparing interpreting students for interpreting legal questioning is very difficult and best achieved by exposing learners to a wide range of question forms in a safe practice environment. In order to ascertain which question types are most difficult to interpret, the authors undertook an analysis of question forms extracted from courtroom discourse, had students interpret these questions, and then conducted an error analysis of the interpreted utterances. The extracts were taken from YouTube clips of televised New Zealand High Court murder trials and were interpreted by 17 student legal interpreters into eight different languages. Certain question forms proved more difficult to interpret accurately than others. Suggestions are provided for interpreter educators to best prepare students for courtroom interpreting

Kompiliranje korpusa u digitalnim humanističkim znanostima u jezicima s ograničenim resursima: o praksi kompiliranja tematskih korpusa iz digitalnih medija za srpski, hrvatski i slovenski

The digital era has unlocked unprecedented possibilities of compiling corpora of social discourse, which has brought corpus linguistic methods into closer interaction with other methods of discourse analysis and the humanities. Even when not using any specific techniques of corpus linguistics, drawing on some sort of corpus is increasingly resorted to for empirically–grounded social–scientific analysis (sometimes dubbed ‘corpus–assisted discourse analysis’ or ‘corpus–based critical discourse analysis’, cf. Hardt–Mautner 1995; Baker 2016). In the post–Yugoslav space, recent corpus developments have brought table–turning advantages in many areas of discourse research, along with an ongoing proliferation of corpora and tools. Still, for linguists and discourse analysts who embark on collecting specialized corpora for their own research purposes, many questions persist – partly due to the fast–changing background of these issues, but also due to the fact that there is still a gap in the corpus method, and in guidelines for corpus compilation, when applied beyond the anglophone contexts. In this paper we aim to discuss some possible solutions to these difficulties, by presenting one step–by–step account of a corpus building procedure specifically for Croatian, Serbian and Slovenian, through an example of compiling a thematic corpus from digital media sources (news articles and reader comments). Following an overview of corpus types, uses and advantages in social sciences and digital humanities, we present the corpus compilation possibilities in the South Slavic language contexts, including data scraping options, permissions and ethical issues, the factors that facilitate or complicate automated collection, and corpus annotation and processing possibilities. The study shows expanding possibilities for work with the given languages, but also some persistently grey areas where researchers need to make decisions based on research expectations. Overall, the paper aims to recapitulate our own corpus compilation experience in the wider context of South–Slavic corpus linguistics and corpus linguistic approaches in the humanities more generallyDigitalno doba otvorilo je nove mogućnosti za sastavljanje korpusa društvenog diskursa, što je korpusnolingvističke metode približilo drugim metodama analize diskursa te humanističkim znanostima. Čak i kada se ne koriste nikakve specifične tehnike korpusne lingvistike, danas je za empirijski utemeljenu društveno–znanstvenu analizu sve učestalije korištenje neke vrste korpusa (‘korpusno–asistirana analiza diskursa’ ili ‘kritička korpusna analiza’, Hardt–Mautner 1995; Baker 2016). U postjugoslavenskom prostoru, nedavni razvoj korpusne lingvistike donio je prednosti u mnogim područjima istraživanja. Ipak, za lingviste i analitičare diskursa koji se upuštaju u prikupljanje specijaliziranih korpusa za vlastite istraživačke svrhe, i dalje ostaju otvorena mnoga pitanja – djelomično zbog pozadine korpusne lingvistike koja se brzo mijenja, ali i zbog činjenice da još uvijek postoji rascjep u poznavanju korpusnih metoda, kao i metodologije sastavljanja korpusa izvan anglofonskog konteksta. Ovim radom pokušavamo smanjiti spomenuti rascjep predstavljajući jedan postupni prikaz postupka izgradnje korpusa za hrvatski, srpski i slovenski, kroz primjer sastavljanja tematskog korpusa iz digitalnih medija (novinski članci i komentari čitatelja). Nakon pregleda tipova korpusa, korištenja i prednosti u društvenim znanostima i digitalnim humanističkim znanostima, predstavljamo mogućnosti sastavljanja korpusa u južnoslavenskim jezičnim kontekstima, uključujući opcije preuzimanja podataka s mreže, dozvola i etičkih pitanja, čimbenika koji olakšavaju ili otežavaju automatizirano prikupljanje i označavanje korpusa i mogućnosti obrade. Studija otkriva sve veće mogućnosti za rad s danim jezicima, ali i neka uporno siva područja u kojima istraživači trebaju donositi odluke na temelju istraživačkih očekivanja. Općenito, rad ima za cilj rekapitulirati vlastito iskustvo sastavljanja korpusa u širem kontekstu južnoslavenske korpusne lingvistike i korpusnih lingvističkih pristupa u humanističkim znanostima općenito

An example of expert system on numerical modelling system in coastal processes

Author name used in this publication: K. W. Chau2001-2002 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalAccepted ManuscriptPublishe

The impact of teachers' language use on eighth graders' behavior

Si bien diferentes teorías de adquisición de segunda lengua proponen la exposición en alto grado de los aprendices a esta como mejor manera de adquirirla, se sabe poco de la relación que existe entre el comportamiento en las aulas de clase y su uso. Por tal motivo, este proyecto de investigación busca respuestas que puedan contribuir a disminuir y controlar problemas de comportamiento a través del uso apropiado de la segunda lengua (inglés) y primera lengua (español). Esta investigación cualitativa llevada a cabo en un grado octavo de un colegio público de Pereira, Risaralda (Colombia) tiene como métodos de recolección de datos entrevistas, observaciones y diarios. El análisis de los datos reunidos muestra que el uso de la primera lengua por parte de los profesores del estudio se da como herramienta para facilitar, clarificar instrucciones, y controlar comportamientos de indisciplina en los estudiantes. Sin embargo, este uso también se deriva de la falta de experiencia de dichos profesores. En relación al comportamiento y actitudes de los estudiantes, se muestra que el comportamiento de indisciplina ocurre como consecuencia del rol del profesor como controlador de la clase. Además, se revelan los efectos en el comportamiento de los estudiantes en clases donde la segunda lengua es usada en un alto grado de exigencia. En conclusión el presente estudio indica que el uso correcto de la segunda lengua y primera lengua no solamente resultan en un aprendizaje efectivo de la lengua, sino que también garantizan el control de la indisciplina de los estudiantes en las clases. A pesar de que el uso de la segunda lengua puede ser un desafío para los estudiantes, los profesores pueden aprovechar el uso de la primera lengua en los momentos que requieren su ayuda para controlar los problemas de comportamiento.Although several language acquisition theories suggest exposing language learners to L2 in high degree to best acquire the language, little is known about the relationship between behavior in classrooms and the use of the second language. Therefore, this research project seeks answers that may contribute to decrease and manage problem behavior through the appropriate use of L2 (English) and L1 (Spanish).This qualitative research carried out in an eighth grade from a Colombian public secondary school in Pereira, Risaralda has as main methods for data collection interviews, observations and personal journals. The analysis of the data gathered shows that the teachers’ use of L1 can be a tool for giving, clarifying instructions, and controlling student´s disruptive behavior, its use may also derive from the teachers’ lack of experience. In regard to students’ behavior and attitudes, it is shown that disruptive behavior may occur as a consequence of teacher’s lack of role as the class manager. Besides, it is revealed the effects of the use of the second language in students’ behavior in challenging classes. In conclusion, the present study indicates that the correct use of L2 and L1 can not only result in effective language learning, but it can also guarantee control of students’ misbehavior in class. Even though the use of L2 may be challenging for students, teachers may take advantage of L1 in moments that require its help to manage problem behavior

My IoT Puzzle: Debugging IF-THEN Rules Through the Jigsaw Metaphor

End users can nowadays define applications in the format of IF-THEN rules to personalize their IoT devices and online services. Along with the possibility to compose such applications, however, comes the need to debug them, e.g., to avoid unpredictable and dangerous behaviors. In this context, different questions are still unexplored: which visual languages are more appropriate for debugging IF-THEN rules? Which information do end users need to understand, identify, and correct errors? To answer these questions, we first conducted a literature analysis by reviewing previous works on end-user debugging, with the aim of extracting design guidelines. Then, we developed My IoT Puzzle, a tool to compose and debug IF-THEN rules based on the Jigsaw metaphor. My IoT Puzzle interactively assists users in the debugging process with different real-time feedback, and it allows the resolution of conflicts by providing textual and graphical explanations. An exploratory study with 6 participants preliminary confirms the effectiveness of our approach, showing that the usage of the Jigsaw metaphor, along with real-time feedback and explanations, helps users understand and fix conflicts among IF-THEN rules

Developing A System To Evaluate Text\u27s Suitability For Use In Greek Language Teaching

Internet is a dynamic corpus, a huge digital library of authentic material which is of particular im- portance to language teaching. In the modern pedagogical framework, language teaching is based on the genre-based approach and on the teaching of language to its authentic use. Viewing the Web as a corpus for the purposes of language teaching and due to the difficulty on selecting suitable texts with specific grammatical information from the Web, this paper presents the development life cycle phases of the system diaKeimenou. The literature review showed the research gap in relation to the ways of searching and finding a suitable text for use in the language teaching according to specific linguistic characteristics associated with the teaching objectives. The computational tool by the name diaKeimenou which is presented in this paper aims to fill this gap and help the teacher to evaluate text’s suitability given the specified learning objectives without much effort and time. The results from the usability evaluation show that the tool diaKeimenou is useful and easy to use

Knowledge Acquisition for Learner Modelling in Second Language Learning

The results of past studies in Error Analysis in applied linguistics and the experiences of developers of intelligent tutoring systems in learner modelling have influenced our definition of a new structure, called an "applicable rule", that can be used to help diagnose and to represent a learner's performance in second language learning systems. Based on this structure a prototype interface has been designed to acquire the knowledge that it must contain. The results of experiments with this interface, to validate and to fill it, have been instrumental in refining its structure, pointing out the difficulties of transforming it into an automated acquisition device, and in indicating its potential as a teaching device