Development of Student-centred Language Learning Environment

The purpose of this study was to develop a web-based language learning platform for Sendai National College of Technology. The application is aimed for the exchange students of the aforementioned school and is meant to facilitate students’ language learning and to endorse a self-driven way of learning. The operating logic and data handling of the application were implemented by using the AngularJS framework and the Firebase data storage platform. In addition to this, HTML5 techniques and JavaScript-based plugins were used to create visually different views and various transitions. Student-centred learning is considered one of the most significant pedagogical point of views. Active student participation and connecting learning processes to real world situations are one of the defining properties of the approach. A student-centred learning environment offers students the tools for content production and management with interactive and communal elements, altogether producing a personalized learning experience. Participatory and socially connected Web, or “Web 2.0” has brought elements of social media and open content into the field of learning, enabling the evolvement of student-centred web-based learning platforms. This trend is often referred as e-learning 2.0. Sendai colleges are renewing their pedagogical models by implementing student-centred methods to teaching and classroom activities. The need for renewal also gave rise to the subject for this thesis work. Development of the application started in November 2016. The application is still in development, but its current features fulfill the initial objects set to it in the design process, with good qualifications for further development. In its current form, the application provides a collaborative and student-centred environment, the features of which complement the pedagogical models that are appropriate to modern mobile services.Insinöörityön tarkoituksena oli kehittää kielen opiskeluun verkko-oppimisjärjestelmä, joka tulee Sendain teknisen korkeakoulun vaihto-opiskelijoiden käyttöön. Järjestelmän tarkoitus on helpottaa opiskelijoiden kielen opiskelua tarjoamalla verkko-oppimisympäristö, jossa opiskelijat ovat aktiivisia tiedon rakentajia ja jossa oppimisen lopputuloksiin pyritään yhteistoiminnan ja opiskelijoiden henkilökohtaisten käsitysten ja assosiaatioiden kautta. Järjestelmän toimintalogiikka ja tiedonhallinta toteutettiin verkkopohjaisia AngularJS- ja Firebase- ohjelmistokehyksiä ja -alustoja käyttäen. Tämän lisäksi eri näkymien visuaaliseen toteutukseen käytettiin HTML5-tekniikoita ja JavaScriptiin perustuvia lisäosia. Nykyään merkittävänä oppimisteoreettisena näkökulmana pidetään oppijakeskeisyyttä, jossa korostuu muun muassa oppijan aktiivinen toiminta oppimisprosessissa ja näiden prosessien liittäminen oikean elämän tilanteisiin. Oppijakeskeinen ympäristö tarjoaa työkaluja sisällön tuotantoon ja hallintaan sekä vuorovaikutusta ja yhteisöllisyyttä. Tietotekniikassa sosiaalinen media ja vapaat sisällöt ovat mahdollistaneet tämänkaltaisten verkko-oppimisalustojen kehityksen. Tätä kehityssuuntaa verkko-oppimisalustoissa kutsutaan e-learning 2.0:ksi. Sendain teknisessä korkeakoulussa on pyritty viime vuosina uudistamaan opetustyyliä rakentamalla sitä oppijakeskeisyyttä tukevan pedagogiikan ympärille. Koulun uudistumistarve opetuksessa myös nosti esille tämän opinnäytetyön aiheen. Järjestelmän kehitystyö aloitettiin marraskuussa 2016. Järjestelmän kehitys on vielä kesken, mutta se täyttää jo nykyisillä toiminnoillaan alussa asetettuja tavoitteita ja luo hyvän perustan jatkokehitykselle. Sillä on myös nykymuodossaan edellytyksiä tarjota vuorovaikutteinen ja oppijakeskeinen työympäristö, jonka toiminnollisuudet tukevat niitä pedagogisia malleja, jotka ovat nykyaikaisille verkko- ja mobiilisovelluksille ominaisia

Piloting semi-adaptive learning on Graasp platform for Japanese language as a second language

https://www.ester.ee/record=b5461882*es

Free, Cost-efficient, and Worthwhile Solutions to Learning Japanese: a Survey of Established and Emerging Resources.

Recently, the increased availability of Creative Commons licensed Japanese reference sources, the increased popularity of mobile software, and the development of social language learning networks has given rise to a new class of free and cost efficient resources for learning Japanese. Although many are still in the early stages of development, a number of these have reached a level of high quality sufficient to rival even the expensive, in-place product leaders in language learning. Some of these new resources are even surpassing the genre's leaders in the features that they offer. This bibliography explores the resources currently available for learning the Japanese language in English and includes use-based evaluations on the products leaders in the field, innovative resources of high potential, and a number of lesser known resources also

A communicative approach to computer-assisted-learning in teaching Japanese as a foreign language

This study looks at the use of CAL (Computer-AssistedLearning) for TJFL (Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language). An Appropriate model of CAL is sought based on language teaching and learning theories. The model consists of teachers' and students' aspects. Core ideas of language teaching, factors of learning, and an educational aspect are blended into a theoretically ideal CAL syllabus. Existing course (soft) ware systems are classified based on this model and are examined. Suggestions for improvements and ideas for CAL in TJFL are presented

VICA, a visual counseling agent for emotional distress

We present VICA, a Visual Counseling Agent designed to create an engaging multimedia face-to-face interaction. VICA is a human-friendly agent equipped with high-performance voice conversation designed to help psychologically stressed users, to offload their emotional burden. Such users specifically include non-computer-savvy elderly persons or clients. Our agent builds replies exploiting interlocutor\u2019s utterances expressing such as wishes, obstacles, emotions, etc. Statements asking for confirmation, details, emotional summary, or relations among such expressions are added to the utterances. We claim that VICA is suitable for positive counseling scenarios where multimedia specifically high-performance voice communication is instrumental for even the old or digital divided users to continue dialogue towards their self-awareness. To prove this claim, VICA\u2019s effect is evaluated with respect to a previous text-based counseling agent CRECA and ELIZA including its successors. An experiment involving 14 subjects shows VICA effects as follows: (i) the dialogue continuation (CPS: Conversation-turns Per Session) of VICA for the older half (age > 40) substantially improved 53% to CRECA and 71% to ELIZA. (ii) VICA\u2019s capability to foster peace of mind and other positive feelings was assessed with a very high score of 5 or 6 mostly, out of 7 stages of the Likert scale, again by the older. Compared on average, such capability of VICA for the older is 5.14 while CRECA (all subjects are young students, age < 25) is 4.50, ELIZA is 3.50, and the best of ELIZA\u2019s successors for the older (> 25) is 4.41

Lexical complexity prediction: an overview

The occurrence of unknown words in texts significantly hinders reading comprehension. To improve accessibility for specific target populations, computational modeling has been applied to identify complex words in texts and substitute them for simpler alternatives. In this article, we present an overview of computational approaches to lexical complexity prediction focusing on the work carried out on English data. We survey relevant approaches to this problem which include traditional machine learning classifiers (e.g., SVMs, logistic regression) and deep neural networks as well as a variety of features, such as those inspired by literature in psycholinguistics as well as word frequency, word length, and many others. Furthermore, we introduce readers to past competitions and available datasets created on this topic. Finally, we include brief sections on applications of lexical complexity prediction, such as readability and text simplification, together with related studies on languages other than English