Block-Based Development of Mobile Learning Experiences for the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things enables experts of given domains to create smart user experiences for interacting with the environment. However, development of such experiences requires strong programming skills, which are challenging to develop for non-technical users. This paper presents several extensions to the block-based programming language used in App Inventor to make the creation of mobile apps for smart learning experiences less challenging. Such apps are used to process and graphically represent data streams from sensors by applying map-reduce operations. A workshop with students without previous experience with Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile app programming was conducted to evaluate the propositions. As a result, students were able to create small IoT apps that ingest, process and visually represent data in a simpler form as using App Inventor's standard features. Besides, an experimental study was carried out in a mobile app development course with academics of diverse disciplines. Results showed it was faster and easier for novice programmers to develop the proposed app using new stream processing blocks.Spanish National Research Agency (AEI) - ERDF fund

ALANZ handbook

Co-edited Handbook for participants at December ALANZ Symposiu

ALANZ handbook 2018

Co-edited Handbook for participants at December ALANZ Symposiu

ALANZ handbook

Co-edited Handbook for participants at December ALANZ Symposiu

ALANZ 2018

1st December 2018 Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec) Hamilton We are pleased to announce that the Call for Papers for the ALANZ SYMPOSIUM 2018 is now open. We invite proposals for paper presentations, interactive sessions and posters. The landscape of English language teaching is constantly changing and as teachers contemplate new cohorts of learners, they face this question: Is business as usual enough? In today’s settings there are new technologies to incorporate into learning and teaching, different teaching spaces becoming available, a need to balance fostering learner autonomy with the pastoral care of students, as well as ensuring that our teaching is relevant to the world our students face. We would like to adopt a collegial approach to this question and so invite abstracts from members and non-members of ALANZ and in particular from new and emerging researchers. Presentation types: * Oral Presentations: These will be allocated 20 minutes and 5 minutes for questions (25 minutes total) usually supported with visual aids. * Interactive sessions: These could be workshops or informal discussions around points of interest in Applied Linguistics (45 minutes) and could be supported by visual aids or activities. * Posters: Often some research projects can be best presented in a visual manner in the form of a poster. Abstracts (250 words max.) can be submitted to one of two committee members: * Anthea Fester email: [email protected] or * Celine Kearney email: [email protected] Deadline for abstract submission: 7th September 2018 Notification of acceptance: 28th September 201

How much exposure to English is necessary for a bilingual toddler to perform like a monolingual peer in language tests?

Background Bilingual children are under-referred due to an ostensible expectation that they lag behind their monolingual peers in their English acquisition. The recommendations of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) state that bilingual children should be assessed in both the languages known by the children. However, despite these recommendations, a majority of speech and language professionals report that they assess bilingual children only in English as bilingual children come from a wide array of language backgrounds and standardized language measures are not available for the majority of these. Moreover, even when such measures do exist, they are not tailored for bilingual children. Aims It was asked whether a cut-off exists in the proportion of exposure to English at which one should expect a bilingual toddler to perform as well as a monolingual on a test standardized for monolingual English-speaking children. Methods & Procedures Thirty-five bilingual 2;6-year-olds exposed to British English plus an additional language and 36 British monolingual toddlers were assessed on the auditory component of the Preschool Language Scale, British Picture Vocabulary Scale and an object-naming measure. All parents completed the Oxford Communicative Development Inventory (Oxford CDI) and an exposure questionnaire that assessed the proportion of English in the language input. Where the CDI existed in the bilingual's additional language, these data were also collected. Outcomes & Results Hierarchical regression analyses found the proportion of exposure to English to be the main predictor of the performance of bilingual toddlers. Bilingual toddlers who received 60% exposure to English or more performed like their monolingual peers on all measures. K-means cluster analyses and Levene variance tests confirmed the estimated English exposure cut-off at 60% for all language measures. Finally, for one additional language for which we had multiple participants, additional language CDI production scores were significantly inversely related to the amount of exposure to English. Conclusions & Implications Typically developing 2;6-year-olds who are bilingual in English and an additional language and who hear English 60% of the time or more, perform equivalently to their typically developing monolingual peers

A model of the dynamics of organizational communication

We propose a model of the dynamics of organizational communication. Our model specifies the mechanics by which communication impact is fed back to communication inputs and closes the gap between sender and receiver of messages. We draw on language critique, a branch of language philosophy, and derive joint linguistic actions of interlocutors to explain the emergence and adaptation of communication on the group level. The model is framed by Te'eni's cognitive-affective model of organizational communication

Incorporation of two terminology projects into a system for information retrieval using NLP for term expansion

In this paper, we will discuss two medical terminology projects at the University College of Ghent, Faculty of translation studies, and the benefits of combining them to provide Dutch professionals and laymen with better access to information in biomedical databases. Our first project, the MeSH Termbase Project (MTB) is aimed at health care professionals, medical translators and also patients in need of language support. The main aim of our second project, the Multilingual Glossary of Technical and Popular Medical Terms, is the simplification of the terminology used in patient information leaflets

Are simultaneous interpreters expert bilinguals, unique bilinguals, or both?

Simultaneous interpretation is a cognitively demanding process that requires a high level of language management. Previous studies on bilinguals have suggested that extensive practice managing two languages leads to enhancements in cognitive control. Thus, interpreters may be expected to show benefits beyond those seen in bilinguals, either as an extension of previously-seen benefits or in areas specific to interpretation. The present study examined professional interpreters (N = 23) and matched multilinguals (N = 21) on memory tests, the color-word Stroop task, the Attention Network Test, and a non-linguistic task-switching paradigm. The interpreters did not show advantages in conflict resolution or switching cost where bilingual benefits have been noted. However, an interpretation-specific advantage emerged on the mixing cost in the task-switching paradigm. Additionally, the interpreters had larger verbal and spatial memory spans. Interpreters do not continue to garner benefits from bilingualism, but they do appear to possess benefits specific to their experience with simultaneous interpretation