Service e-Learning Project : State Graduation Online Demo Exam

The service e-learning project described in this paper presents the online demo exam in informatics designed as a preparatory step for the state graduation. It was created in the midst of turbulence caused by the introduction of the state graduation at the end of secondary education in Croatia. With this project we wanted to engage grammar school students in service e-learning and present them with the opportunity to design their own test materials through the collaboration with college students who are experts in the field. We also aimed to gain our own benefit of connecting the theory learned during the study with new practical experiences while at the same time helping the students to achieve at a high level in the state graduation exam. Finally, since its free available online, our project should benefit everyone who wants to test their knowledge in informatics and/or learn something new in an easy and interesting way

Service Learning in Information Science : Web for the Blind

The biggest problem to blind and visually impaired people poses the integration in various aspects of the social life. Since computer technology with its dominantly visual interface increasingly becomes the prime media for communication, these people are faced with a new obstacle – the ability to work on a computer and use it to communicate with others. Technologies that enable the blind to use the computer do exist, both hardware and software, but they have difficulty learning to use them. The reason for this is lack of standardized educational program so that computer education of blind is usually left to themselves and a few associations that do not have sufficiently qualified staff for such a task. Our service learning project offers the first step to possible solution of the current situation. Service learning is a methodology where learning occurs when students apply what they learn to community problems. It was introduced into information science curriculum in the academic year 2006/07 for the first time in Croatian University with the goal to transform the old teaching style, give the final year students more place to apply the theory they learned through the study and, most important, to provide an important service to the local community. “Web for the Blind” is the service learning project that provides a first step towards an optimal solution. The main goal of this student project was to establish an adequate model on which all future projects in this field could be based. At the moment “Web for the Blind” is a stand-alone application that provides the blind and visually impaired with the guides on how to install a web browser, familiarizes them with its interface and gives them some basic information on surfing the web. The application can be used without a mouse and with or without screen-reader software because it contains the tutorials in textual and audio format. The next phase of the project involves intensive testing in the field. It is to be presented to as much users as possible for the evaluation purpose. Finally, the contents of the tutorials need to be gradually updated in both quality and quantity

Project of Developing the Multimedia Software Supporting Teaching and Learning English Vocabulary

Since the Academic Year 2005-2006 we have worked on a project of developing the interactive multimedia software for learning English vocabulary. The software was tested on junior learners in elementary school within the English language course lesson. The results were measured by comparing the test results from the computer-aided lesson with the ones from a traditional one and they showed a great level of disparity both regarding the learners’ knowledge and their motivation. Vocabulary of a language does not only consist of separate contextually independent words, but also of contextually bound lexical items, such as collocations. In 2006-2007 we have expanded the software by adding the feature for multimedia collocations. By terms of imitating reality, we have been designing multimedia animated presentations of English collocations comprising picture, text and sound. Our past, present and future phases of the project have purpose of examining the use of animation in educational settings

Marvin – A Conversational Agent Based Interface for the Study of Information Sciences

In this paper we present initial results of the ongoing project, building a Conversational Agent (chatterbot) - Marvin. Marvin is designed to simulate intelligent conversation with students of Information Sciences at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. It is capable of providing basic feedback to students via textual methods. The primary goal of this work is to inform the user of points of interest, to provide support, capture data from the user and promote study of information sciences. Furthermore, the goal is to enhance the presentation of information to students, especially information regarding the undergraduate study, obligatory and elective courses, ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) points and exams. Finally, the objective is to teach the students how to improve the quality of user experience using human-like conversational agents

VIDEO DNEVNICI U AKADEMSKOM DRUŠTVENO KORISNOM UČENJU

This paper chronicles experience of one of its authors (Nives Mikelić Preradović) with video journals in the service-learning course with year-5 students of Information Sciences at the University in Zagreb (Croatia) specialized in the following fields: Archival Science, Library Science, Museology, and Informatics Teacher Education. The first part of the paper introduces academic service-learning and outlines previous experiences with video journals in service-learning. The second part of the paper describes service-learning at the University of Zagreb, and briefly introduces research methodology. The third part of the paper presents two case studies of using video journals in academic service-learning: TiM: Ti i Muzej (Team: You and Museum) and Readers’ Club Knjigotron. The last, fourth part of the paper, analyses case studies and describes advantages and obstacles to introduce video journaling in service-learning. The paper confirms earlier research in conclusion that the main obstacles to such implementation are technical skills related to video production. However, it also shows that widely available equipment, such as phones and computers, satisfies the needs of service-learning. Therefore, in contrast to earlier research, it seems that equipment has ceased to be an obstacle. In spite of differences in technical proficiency and quality of final videos, students in both groups have met learning outcomes and acquired appropriate critical skills. Instead of speaking of video proficiency, therefore, the paper suggests that future research should turn into the direction of video literacy.Rad opisuje iskustva jedne od autorica (Nives Mikelić Preradović) sa video dnevnicima u kolegiju na temu društveno korisng učenja sa studentima pete godine studija informacijskih znanosti na Filozofskom fakultetu Sveučilišta u Zagrebu koji se specijaliziraju u sljedećim smjerovima: arhivistika, bibliotekarstvo, muzeologija, i nastava informatike. Prvi dio rada uvodi akademsko društveno korisno učenje i opisuje ranija iskustva s video dnevnicima u društveno korisnom učenju. Drugi dio rada opisuje društveno korisno učenje na Sveučilištu u Zagrebu i kratko opisuje istraživačku metodologiju. Treći dio rada prezentira dvije studije slučaja: TiM: Ti i Muzej i Čitateljski klub Knjigotron. Zadnji, četvrti dio rada analizira studije slučajeva te opisuje prednosti i mane uvođenja video dnevnika u društveno korisnom učenju. Rad potvrđuje rezultate ranijih istraživanja u zaključku da se glavne prepreke nalaze u području tehničkih vještina povezanih s video produkcijom. Međutim, on također prikazuje da široko dostupna oprema, poput telefona i računala, zadovoljava zahtjeve društveno korisnog učenja. Dakle, u suprotnosti sa ranijim istraživanjima, rad zaključuje da je oprema prestala biti preprekom za uspješno društveno korisno učenje. Usprkos razlikama u tehničkim vještinama i kvaliteti završnih video radova, studenti u obje grupe postigli su ishode učenja i stekli odgovarajuće kritičke vještine. Umjesto daljih istraživanja u području tehničke spremnosti, dakle, rad sugerira da buduća istraživanja treba usmjeriti ka video pismenosti

Framework of the Language Learning Environment for Assisting Foreigners in Learning Croatian (AFILC)

The goal of this paper is to present the development framework of the interactive multimedia project AFILC (Assisting Foreigners in Learning Croatian). The purpose of the AFILC is to develop language learning materials that will motivate foreigners to learn the Croatian language and help them cope with its grammatical richness. Interesting graphics, motivating user-friendly interface, educational character and interactivity are the characteristics that will enhance the process of mastering the Croatian language for foreigners. In the AFILC the users will be able to almost completely control and manage the process of learning at their own pace

Service Learning in Information Science : Web for the Blind

The biggest problem to blind and visually impaired people poses the integration in various aspects of the social life. Since computer technology with its dominantly visual interface increasingly becomes the prime media for communication, these people are faced with a new obstacle – the ability to work on a computer and use it to communicate with others. Technologies that enable the blind to use the computer do exist, both hardware and software, but they have difficulty learning to use them. The reason for this is lack of standardized educational program so that computer education of blind is usually left to themselves and a few associations that do not have sufficiently qualified staff for such a task. Our service learning project offers the first step to possible solution of the current situation. Service learning is a methodology where learning occurs when students apply what they learn to community problems. It was introduced into information science curriculum in the academic year 2006/07 for the first time in Croatian University with the goal to transform the old teaching style, give the final year students more place to apply the theory they learned through the study and, most important, to provide an important service to the local community. “Web for the Blind” is the service learning project that provides a first step towards an optimal solution. The main goal of this student project was to establish an adequate model on which all future projects in this field could be based. At the moment “Web for the Blind” is a stand-alone application that provides the blind and visually impaired with the guides on how to install a web browser, familiarizes them with its interface and gives them some basic information on surfing the web. The application can be used without a mouse and with or without screen-reader software because it contains the tutorials in textual and audio format. The next phase of the project involves intensive testing in the field. It is to be presented to as much users as possible for the evaluation purpose. Finally, the contents of the tutorials need to be gradually updated in both quality and quantity

Students for Seniors : Basic ICT Education for the Elderly

The mission of this project was to teach the elderly citizens the basic information and communication technology (ICT) skills. Students of information and communication sciences (museum studies and heritage management and librarianship) planned and realized this service learning project through interactive collaboration between Tin Ujević public library, Trešnjevka retirement home and Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. The education for the elderly, a social group that is least connected with the rest of the today's society through information technology, represents a very important issue for their social inclusion and staying in life's mainstream. The students taught the end beneficiaries the basics of information technology with the emphasis on social networks (Facebook and Skype). Out of 15 participants, the first level (basic computer skills) was successfully completed by 13 participants. Two participants had physical deficiencies (they could not coordinate the movements of their body with the visual input). The second level was completed by 9 participants, while 6 participants were able to complete the third level (creating and managing the Facebook account). The last level (creating and managing the Skype account) was successfully completed by only two participants

Facebook : The Good, the Bad or the Ugly?

This paper presents a student project that used a unique service learning approach to the issue of cyberbullying among elementary school pupils. Students have prepared a combination of lectures (curriculum units) and workshops about cyberbullying that occurs on social networks. Main purpose of the project was to educate pupils about the harmful side of the social networks, violence, and pedophilia. However, students also showed children the variety of ways social networks can be used appropriately in school and how to protect themselves from bullies and predators on the web

Information Transfer through Online Summarizing and Translation Technology

Information access – presented in proper language, in understandable way, at the right time and right place can be of considerable importance. Information and communication technology, wrapping also human language technologies, can play important role in information transfer to the specific user. Translation technology along with summarizing technology has opened new possibilities and perspectives, requiring in the same time the critical opinion in information analysis. The main purpose of this research is to present the impact of text summarization and online machine translation tools on information transfer. The research was performed on texts taken from online newspapers in five do- mains (politics, news, sport, film and gastronomy) in English, German and Russian languages. The total of N=240 evaluations were analysed, performed by the same three evaluators. In the research three types of assignments were made. The first assignment was to evaluate machine-translated sentences at the sentence level for the three language pairs (English-Croatian, German-Croatian and Russian-Croatan). In the second task, the similar evaluation was performed, but at the whole text level. In the third assignment, which was related to information transfer, the evaluators were asked to evaluate the overall quality of the texts process in the pipe- lined process (online summarization and online machine translation) for English and German. Assessment was based on the finding the answers to the following questions – who, what, when, where, and how? The results were analysed by ANOVA, t-test and binary logistic regression