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C&IT Centre

No 5, June 95, Pt 2

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A Multimedia Application Based on the Poems of Homer

This Project will allow the Open University to produce a standalone version of a multimedia application currently under development, which is integrated into a specific University course. It will result in an interactive multimedia application based around the poems of Homer, making use of video, audio and text material. The application will be of use both as a research tool and as an example of how multimedia can be used as a teaching medium for undergraduate-level courses in humanities. The project will also yield a detailed report covering production, presentation and educational issues which are fundamental to multimedia developments.

Information:
Dr J Greenberg
The Open University
Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA

CATH'95 Conference

Royal Holloway, University of London 5th-7th September 1995

Theme: 'Computers and the Changing Curriculum'

For further details on the call for papers and other information, please contact:

Christine Mullings, Office for Humanities Communication, Oxford University Computing Services, 13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN, Email [email protected]

Recent Software Donations to CTI Modern Languages

A.P.T. (Application Program Tutor) (The Electric Brain Company)
Business Talk (English/French) CD-ROM (Libra Multimedia)
De Tudo Um Pouco (Mike Harland, TILT project, Glasgow)
Facts about Germany CD-ROM (German Consulate)
FriDa (Stockholm University)
Grundgesetz, engl. Sprachfassung (German Consulate)
Harraps Multilingual Dictionary Windows version (Larousse plc)
HyperMots (Prototype) (Liam Murray)
Le Monde CD-ROM 1993 (Research Publications)
Libra Demo Disk; including Telephone Talk, Small Talk, Business Talk, Travel Talk, their foreign language versions and 'future versions' (Libra Multimedia)
Russianglish (Gene Shenniko, InterGGS, Inc.)
Tatsachen �ber Deutschland  CD-ROM (German Consulate)

Using Learning Technologies: Interim Conclusions from the TILT Project

by G Doughty, S Arnold, N Barr, M Brown, L Creanor, P Donnelly, S Draper, C Duffy, H Durndell, M Harrison, F Henderson, A Jessop, E McAteer, M Milner, D Neil, T Pflicke, M Pollock, C Primrose, S Richard, N Sclater, R Shaw, S Tickner, I Turner, R van der Zwan, H Watt and edited by R Shaw.

ISBN 0 85261 473 X

Conclusions and recommendations based on two years of an institutional Teaching with Independent Learning Technologies project have just been published in Using Learning Technologies: Interim Conclusions from the TILT Project. The 58 page A4 volume will be of value to those concerned with the introduction of new learning technologies into higher education. It offers some help to those who want to improve their students' learning, or find more time for research. It presents a set of interim conclusions and makes recommendations based on practices adopted at the University of Glasgow, on debate within TILT, and on discussions with colleagues in other TLTP projects. The contents list and summary are available to view at http://www.elec.gla.ac.uk/TILT/report3.html

Free copies are available to all staff in the University of Glasgow, and many have been circulated. Beyond Glasgow University a few copies are distributed free to every TLTP project, CTI Centre and the UCoSDA staff training list. Copies of TILT reports are often distributed at LTDI and other training events. Otherwise please send a cheque for �5 payable to "University of Glasgow" to:

Maureen Galbraith
Secretary, TILT Project   
66 Oakfield Avenue
Glasgow G12 8LS
Tel 0141 330 4976
Email [email protected]

Indian Fonts for IBM PC and Macintosh

The following Indian fonts are available for sale Gujarati (3 different type faces), Hindi, Tamil, Sanskrit and Indian Artwork font. These fonts are TrueType Scaleable fonts, compatible with Windows and any Windows wordprocessor. For Macintosh , System 7.0 is required and the fonts will work with any Macintosh software.

For futher information and prices contact Vijay Patel, email: [email protected]

The Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTL) Project

This project, part of the University of Minnesota's National Language Resource Center, has established five new internet lists (mailing lists) to help teachers of LCTLs communicate and cooperate with each other:

• Celtic-T
• China-T
• Hindi-T
• Nordic-T
• Polish-T

The discussions will relate primarily to pedagogy, and it is hoped that topics will include the availability of teaching material, how to use the material, willingness to share ideas and material, and issues related to enrolments and outreach. The listservs are unmoderated.

You may join any list by sending the message SUB listname yourfirstname yourlastname to [email protected]. Substitute one of the above names for "listname" in the message, for example:

SUB Polish-T Pat Smith

The Phonemic Alphabet in English

An Interactive Mac Program

A simple way to learn the sounds and symbols of the phonemic alphabet in English. Produced by the English Language Teaching Department in association with the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of St Andrews, this interactive Mac program aims to teach users to recognise the symbols of the phonemic alphabet used in Standard British English and the sounds associated with them.

Learners of English as a Foreign /Second Language, TEFL Teachers and Trainees and Students of Linguistics can all benefit from the program.

The Phonemic Alphabet in English has been written in HyperCard. To run the program you will need to have a Mac Plus, Classic, LC or above. Mac Plus users should note that they will need headphones (Walkman style) to run the program as the sound chips are not in stereo.

Available from:

Don Friend
English Language Teaching Department
University of St Andrews
Butts Wynd
St Andrews
Fife  KY16 9AL
Tel: 01334 462269, Fax: 01334 46227
email: [email protected]

Basic licence (up to five stations at a single site) �50.00

Extended licence (unlimited usage at a single site) �100.00

Sterling cheques to be made payable to "University of St Andrews"

Please also specify the type of hardware to be used to run the program, and whether you have HyperCard.

ITTI Publications

The Design of Multimedia Learning Programs

Erica McAteer and Robin Shaw
UKHE  �6.50  Non-UKHE  �6.50 plus p&p

This booklet is one of a group of publications produced as part of the "Establishing Multimedia Authoring Skills in Higher Education" (EMASHE) project, funded by ITTI. When complete, publications from EMASHE will comprise tutorials in Hypercard, Toolbook and Authorware for the Macintosh and PC, together with appropriate software resources. In addition, separate publications cover the design, planning and evaluation of computer assisted learning packages.

This particular booklet provides guidelines to the design implications of the various components of multimedia courseware, based on research.

The topics covered include Overall Design, Interactivity, Screen Design, Text, Graphics, Animation, Video, Sound and Colour. The text is illustrated with examples largely drawn from programs in development at the University of Glasgow.

Knowledge Tree

Developed by Dr Peter Davies and Dr Tim Brailsford
University of Nottingham
UKHE  �25.00   Non-UKHE �35.00   Schools �30.00

The Knowledge Tree is an on-line question-asking-and-answering system that combines elements of a threaded Usenet style bulletin board with database functionality. Students can ask new questions, as well as see and respond to each others questions, and browse through a hypermedia database of past questions. These questions are routed to subject experts, and the 'official' answers are then stored in the database. This is intended as a learning support system for students in any subject area, but it has many other potential uses - such as technical user support.

For more information see the WWW site http://ibis.nott.ac.uk/software/kt.html

Examine (Windows version)

Developed by Dr Peter Davies and Dr Tim Brailsford
University of Nottingham
UKHE     �25.00   Non-UKHE  �40.00    Schools �30.00

Examine is a multiple-choice authoring and delivery system for use either as an adjunct to courseware or as a standalone means of on-line self-assessment. A number of question types are supported, as well as graphics and multimedia. There is also support for the Microcosm hypermedia system developed by Southampton University. This is a major upgrade from the prototype release that was distributed from Nottingham. A Macintosh version of Examine is currently beta testing.

For more information see the WWW site http://ibis.nott.ac.uk/software/examine.html

All the above are obtainable from:

Mrs Jean Burgan
UCoSDA
Level Six
University House
SHEFFIELD S10 2TN
Tel: 0114 272 5248
Fax: 0114 272 8705
Email: [email protected]

German News Material

The following two sources of German News material in electronic format may be of interest to German teachers:

German News is a source of the latest news from Germany in German

http://www.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/misc.germnews

The news magazine Der Spiegel is accessible via the NISS Information Gateway

http://www.niss.ac.uk/news/index.html

Most of the material here is in German though brief outlines of some articles are available in English. Only the current issue's contents and extracts can be accessed, and the resource is updated weekly.

Swansea Classics Home Page

http://www.swan.ac.uk/classics/HomePage.htm

This home page, set up to provide information about the Department of Classics & Ancient History at University of Wales Swansea, also has a useful section on electronic resources. Currently available via the electronic journal BrynMawr Classical Review is an article 'Computer Assisted Instruction in the Learning of Greek and Latin'. It contains reviews of various CAI packages by different reviewers, with an introduction by William A. Johnson.

The new NISS Information Gateway

http://www.niss.ac.uk

New features include: subject searching of Internet resources (a bit like the BUBL subject tree but with some evaluation of the resources); text from Voice of America and Time magazine; jobs on the Internet grouped together (from NISS, the Times Higher and Academe this Week); reference works like Roget's Thesaurus; and an increasing amount of higher education, administrative and professional information. It also has a lot of useful crosslinks.

Software Reviews

Eurolinguist Test: Evita

Authors: Marjolein van Bodegom, Feddo Wouters and Uri‰l Schuurs
CITO/Eurolinguist, ISBN 801795 
IBM PC with Windows 3.0 or higher, and a mouse.
Price: Nlgld 1250 (stand-alone) or Nlgld 5000 (network).
Supplier: Eurolinguist, Language House, St. Annastraat 8, 6524 GA Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Tel: 80-600 700, Fax: 80-601 015

The EurolinguistTest system has been developed to provide language teachers or employers with an easy tool to assess the proficiency level in the target language of the incoming student or employee. It is a computer program which adjusts the level of the test after a question has been answered, so that students can move up or down various levels of difficulty. In about twenty minutes the student tackles 45 grammar and vocabulary based questions. On completion the student and teacher are presented with immediate feedback. It is then possible to go back in order to check mistakes and see the correct answers. Also, the teacher will be presented with an analysis which gives details of the path the student has taken and what types of mistakes were made. The system has been designed for Dutch, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. The following is a review of the test version for Dutch as a second language for native speakers of any other language, called Evita.

Evita has been designed as an adaptive testing system, which means in effect that the student will enter the test at one of five levels of difficulty. After a number of questions the degree of difficulty will be adjusted automatically so that the student will move up or down to other levels. The questions in level 1 are the most simple. This level is meant to represent the language proficiency of a beginner in Dutch (or final year primary school), while the questions in level 5, the most complicated, are meant to approach the proficiency of a Dutch native speaker. The program would normally start a student off at level 2, but this can be adjusted to a different level before starting. It should be clear that a high degree of subjectivity on the part of the teacher is unavoidable at this stage, because the teacher will have to decide what the starting level of the student should be, and what the desired final level might be.

The program consists of questions which represent both language comprehension and language production. Proficiency in language comprehension is determined by sentence comprehension and passive vocabulary, whereas language production is tested through word production, sentence production and active vocabulary. In short, a student doing the test will encounter different kinds of questions which together represent five aspects of language proficiency.

As the students go through the test, they are not aware of the level they are currently working on, the dimension of language production or comprehension they are dealing with, or correctness of their responses. They view one question at a time on the screen and go on to the next question by pressing 'return' on the keyboard or using the mouse to move on. There is always an option to say: 'I don't know the answer'. The path that has been taken becomes clear at the end of the test, when the student has the chance, at one touch of the keyboard, to view his or her mistakes. The screen shows the chosen (wrong) answer and the correct version. The teacher has the opportunity to view an analysis report which gives details of the time it took the student to complete the test, the number of mistakes and correct answers, the average level reached by the student, and the path the student has taken (which levels s/he has worked on). The analysis report shows the mistakes in each dimension (not the correct answers however) and can be printed. The teacher can also receive a print-out of the so-called placement report, which gives some of the same statistics as the analysis report, but instead of details of mistakes it gives the score per dimension and tells you what each dimension tests. It is then up to the teacher to interpret the test results.

In October 1994, at the beginning of the academic year, the Evita program was used to determine which of the incoming students who claimed to have a good background knowledge of Dutch were eligible to join a special 'advanced' language class instead of joining the beginners.

Of the 11 participants, 7 students obtained an average score of 3 or higher. Three students scored very low (a level of 1.2), while two students had a score of about 2 (1.9 and 2.1). It was decided to advice the 3 students with the lowest score to attend the beginners language course ('elementary Dutch'), while the remaining 8 students formed the 'advanced beginners' language class. The students who had approached level 2 were told that they might encounter difficulties and that they might be advised to move to the elementary language course at the beginning of the second term. After having worked with both the elementary and advanced beginners classes for two terms, I would say that Evita has proved to be quite an adequate predictor of performance. The students who had reached the higher levels in the test were very much at home in the advanced beginners group and were able to benefit from the teaching geared to their special needs. The two border-line cases remained border-line cases, but with the advantage of having experienced Dutch speakers in the group, these were able to cope and did not feel the need to move to the beginners' group after one term.

In conclusion, Evita is a very useful instrument to assess the target language proficiency level of incoming students. Most students enjoyed the test and did not find it threatening, and they welcomed the quick feed-back on their work. For the teacher (or test supervisor), the test is a time-saving, easy-to-use way of obtaining knowledge about the students' command of the language. If the teacher uses his/her own insight in interpreting the test results, the Eurolinguist Test can be used as a valuable diagnostic and assessment tool.

Agaath de Vries, University of Hull

The full version of this review will be published in ReCALL Vol 7 No 2 November 1995. It describes the ways in which the program tests the five aspects of language proficiency mentioned above and gives more detail about the use of the program with students.

Qu� bien! Stancall

The Qu� bien! Stancall program was designed by professors from the Spanish and Computing departments at St. Andrews University. It is aimed at students who already have a basic grounding in Spanish and may either be used in conjunction with the Qu� Bien! Spanish learner's book (by Jones and Macklin ) or as a supplement to classroom teaching.

CTI Modern Languages has a recent review of the program which can be sent out on request to the address on page 1, free of charge. The review was written by Graham Miles whilst at the University of Kent at Canterbury.

Oriental Software List

compiled by Janusz Krywicki, Institute of Oriental Studies, Warsaw University

This publication is a side product of an International conference on processing oriental languages, CATALYSIS '92, held in the Institute of Oriental Studies, Warsaw University, in June, 1992. It gathers together an important amount of information on handling a wide range of oriental languages on computers. Centred on two popular systems, IBM PC and Apple Macintosh, the publication provides a comprehensive index of oriental languages.

Price: 44 Deutschmarks
Lincom Europa
PO Box 1316
D-8573 Unterschleissheim/M�nchen
Germany

Mastering German Grammar

Author: RF Holt
Apple Macintosh with 13 inch colour monitor and 7MB hard disk space.
Available from: Dr Ron Holt, Bond University, Gold Coast, Qld 4229, Australia.
Price: A$30 (to cover the costs of 4 disks, copying time and postage)

This package, written in Authorware Professional, was produced as a research project funded by the Australian Commonwealth Department of Employment, Education and Training to encourage second language learning. The package is essentially free to any language teacher or language teaching institution.

The package consists of 4 program disks, and a printed page with clear and precise information on installing and using the program which runs on Macs with at least a 13 inch colour monitor and 7Mb of space on the hard disk. The visual quality of the program is very good, with attractive use made of colour, and all written material presented in an easily legible font size.

The package offers a comprehensive introduction to German grammar and could be used as a supplement to any grammar-based beginners course in German, either at secondary school or university level, or as a grammar course for those requiring remedial work at university. It is subdivided into three levels, elementary, intermediate, and advanced, and consists of 32 individual sections, each made up of a tutorial and 2 separate self-assessment tests. Each of these self-assessment tests produces statistical data for any test taken and provides: user name, date, session time; the number of questions asked and the number of questions answered; the number and percentage of correct and incorrect answers . The tests number, on average, ten examples, and consist of three main types. Most require the user to type in a word, phrase, or full sentence. In addition to typed-in answers, tests also use the multiple-choice format, or a variation on multiple choice, namely 'drag and drop'. The sequence of tutorials are in effect a comprehensive reference grammar. This is structured in an extremely systematic manner, with all points illustrated in a 'realistic' way rather than through the artificial paradigms that one sometimes finds in reference grammars. The younger learner, however, might feel a little overawed by the density of the information provided, and would probably need assistance in working through the topics.

The program is essentially linear since, though the user has access to an online glossary of grammatical terms, s/he cannot move between the exercises and the tutorial material, other than by quitting and restarting. Access to specific help whilst working on the exercises would improve the teaching, as opposed to testing, aspect of the program.

One criticism that one must make of the materials in their present form is the frequency of orthographical errors. These number in excess of 100, including misspellings, incorrect or incomplete endings, confusion of upper and lower case, and the omission of commas. This slightly mars what will be a useful and interesting program for those who employ a grammar based approach.

Malcom Read, University of Stirling

A full version of this review will be published in ReCALL Vol 7 No 2 November 1995.

SIMA

Support Initiative for Multimedia Applications

The Advisory Group on Computer Graphics SIMA project, funded under the HEFC Joint Information Systems Committee's New Technologies Initiative, is publishing a series of reports. The following have been published to date:

• Multimedia Formats - Workshop Report
• Survey of the Uses of Software and Hardware for Multimedia Applications in UK Higher Education
• Evaluation of Image Capture Pathways for Multimedia Application
• The Dos and Don'ts of Video Conferencing in Higher Education - HUSAT Research Institute
• The Provision of CBL Material Over Network Information Services
• Running a World Wide Web Service
• The Dos and Don'ts of Video Conferencing - Experience from LIVE-NET
• Video Conferencing and Learning in Higher Education
• A Review of Multimedia Networking
• The Use and Capture of Images for Computer-Based Learning
• Video Conferencing in Education: Meeting Teachers and Learners Support and Training Needs
• The WWW - A Strategic Tool for UK Higher Education

For more information contact:

Dr Anne Mumford
Computing Services
Loughborough University
Loughborough LE11 3TU
Tel 01509 222312, fax 01509 267477
Email [email protected]

or

Sue Cunningham
Computer Graphics Unit
Manchester Computing Centre
University of Manchester
Manchester M13 9PL
Tel 0161 275 6095, fax 0161 275 6040
Email [email protected]

New Mailbase Lists

ELTHE: evaluation of learning technology in higher education

There is an active list on Mailbase, called ELTHE. It aims to act as a discussion forum for all those interested in the evaluation of learning technology in higher education both from an HCI and educational standpoint.

CTI Textual-Studies Electronic List

A mailbase list called cti-textual-studies has recently been set up.It is a moderated list used by the CTI Centre for Textual Studies to disseminate information of interest to people using computers in the teaching of literature, linguistics, philosophy and logic, religious studies and classics, film studies, theatre arts and drama. To join these lists send the commands:

ELTHE: join elthe firstname(s) lastname

CTI Textual Studies: join cti-textual-studies firstname(s) lastname

as the only text of an e-mail message to [email protected]

ELTHE have produced a newsletter, the text of which is accesssible via the URL http://annick.stir.ac.uk/elthe/

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Last updated 15 December 1998