28
edits
Education/Projects/JetpackForLearning/Profiles/ClozeFox: Difference between revisions
Education/Projects/JetpackForLearning/Profiles/ClozeFox (view source)
Revision as of 07:48, 6 February 2010
, 6 February 2010→Short description
EmreSevinc (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
EmreSevinc (talk | contribs) |
||
| (8 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown) | |||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
== Short description == | == Short description == | ||
ClozeFox is a Firefox extension for language learning purposes which generates fill-in and multiple choice exercises (cloze tests) on-the-fly from authentic pages on the Web. A language learner can easily turn an online authentic text into an interactive, meaningful and useful exercise by using ClozeFox. ClozeFox will | ClozeFox is a Firefox extension for language learning purposes which generates fill-in and multiple choice exercises (cloze tests) on-the-fly from authentic pages on the Web. A language learner can easily turn an online authentic text into an interactive, meaningful and useful exercise by using ClozeFox. ClozeFox will allow language teachers to direct their students to selected and suitable web pages that turn into tailor-made exercises. | ||
Learning from the past, ClozeFox is a beautiful example of pedagogy-driven design as it responds to a huge need for interaction on authentic content '''without labor-intensive''' authoring. At the same time, it exploits affordances of Firefox extensions and related Web 2.0 tools for guaranteeing personalization, socialization, and scalability in terms of languages, parsing intelligence, exercise types, feedback, error analysis, remediation, and tracking & logging. | Learning from the past, ClozeFox is a beautiful example of pedagogy-driven design as it responds to a huge need for interaction on authentic content '''without labor-intensive''' authoring. At the same time, it exploits affordances of Firefox extensions and related Web 2.0 tools for guaranteeing personalization, socialization, and scalability in terms of languages, parsing intelligence, exercise types, feedback, error analysis, remediation, and tracking & logging. | ||
Language teachers worldwide are expected to encourage their students to use Mozilla Firefox in order to enrich their own learning environment with a powerful tool for autonomous and / or collaborative learning. Using ClozeFox, students will be able to exchange self-made exercises, store them in social collaborative repositories, moreover teachers can ask them to do so and monitor progress. ClozeFox can be seen as a first product in a series of tools for enhancing the (language) learning experience. | |||
== INSTALL == | == INSTALL == | ||
Please visit [http://dev.linguapolis.be/jetpack/index.html ClozeFox Install page] and click on the "Install..." button on the upper right corner of the page. | Please visit [http://dev.linguapolis.be/jetpack/index.html ClozeFox Install page] and click on the "Install..." button on the upper right corner of the page. | ||
== Walkthrough == | |||
You can view and read a short and simple walkthrough [http://dev.linguapolis.be/jetpack/firstRun.html here]. This document contains short explanations and accompanying screen-shots from the current version of ClozeFox. | |||
== Screencast == | |||
A short screencast is available [http://dev.linguapolis.be/jetpack/screencast/clozefox_screencast.htm here]. This is approximately a video version of the walkthrough above. | |||
== Background and rationale == | == Background and rationale == | ||
| Line 15: | Line 23: | ||
Where initially language courseware (dedicated, meaning designed for language learning, teaching and testing) was the most successful application type, gradually tools (non-dedicated) have been taking over the leading position, both in terms of use as in terms of research and publications. An easy explanation of this phenomenon might be the impact of Web 2.0, but a more serious analysis reveals two important factors: the labor-intensiveness of content development and the labor-intensiveness of software development (Colpaert 2004). | Where initially language courseware (dedicated, meaning designed for language learning, teaching and testing) was the most successful application type, gradually tools (non-dedicated) have been taking over the leading position, both in terms of use as in terms of research and publications. An easy explanation of this phenomenon might be the impact of Web 2.0, but a more serious analysis reveals two important factors: the labor-intensiveness of content development and the labor-intensiveness of software development (Colpaert 2004). | ||
The | The cloze exercise type remains a widely demanded, meaningful, useful and effective activity type. The impact of its deployment depends on the extent to which we can reduce the cost of content authoring (by reusing existing material, making it more generic and exchangeable, by researching new ways of generating content and questions from authentic materials in a computer assisted way, ...), and the cost of software development (by using appropriate design models, by reusing existing components and expertise, by working in open source, ...). | ||
== Project objective == | == Project objective == | ||
| Line 50: | Line 57: | ||
* It can calculate the score and provide feedback for the correct and wrong answers. | * It can calculate the score and provide feedback for the correct and wrong answers. | ||
* It stores the information about previous test scores permanently. It can show these along with statistics and graphs on the slidebar. | * It stores the information about previous test scores permanently. It can show these along with statistics and graphs on the slidebar. | ||
* It can delete previous score information if the user wants. | |||
* It can send the current test's score to the user's Twitter account. Others can track this in real-time and can simply click on the page to do the same test. | * It can send the current test's score to the user's Twitter account. Others can track this in real-time and can simply click on the page to do the same test. | ||
* It can copy the current test configuration. Thus, a teacher can simply compose an e-mail and press Control + v in order to share the test with teachers or colleagues. When that web address is sent ClozeFox automatically renders the web page as a cloze test without needing any input from the user. This makes sharing and running tests very easy. | * It can copy the current test configuration. Thus, a teacher can simply compose an e-mail and press Control + v in order to share the test with teachers or colleagues. When that web address is sent ClozeFox automatically renders the web page as a cloze test without needing any input from the user. This makes sharing and running tests very easy. | ||
* It can provide the definition of a selected word. | |||
Of course in its current form the ClozeFox is far from perfect and needs further work: | Of course in its current form the ClozeFox is far from perfect and needs further work: | ||
| Line 59: | Line 68: | ||
* More control on the parameters of test (whole word, partial word, frequency of words to change). | * More control on the parameters of test (whole word, partial word, frequency of words to change). | ||
* More intelligent control about distractors. | * More intelligent control about distractors. | ||
* A back-end web service so that much more sophisticated natural language processing routines can be handled for texts in various languages. | * The capability to play the pronunciation (through sound synthesis / or file retrieval) and / or translation of the word to fill in or any word in context. | ||
* User adaptability features: Again a back-end web service can store user's performance data and provide personalized suggestions and tests by performing statistical analysis of users, | * A back-end web service so that much more sophisticated natural language processing routines can be handled for texts in various languages (such as the possibility to add a refined morphological analyzer and parser). | ||
* User adaptability features: Again a back-end web service can store user's performance data and provide personalized suggestions and tests by performing statistical analysis of users and user groups, their behavior, performance and error characteristics. | |||
* And finally refactoring of the current source code for easier development, should the other open source developers take an interest to add more features to ClozeFox. | |||
== Mockups == | == Mockups == | ||
| Line 68: | Line 80: | ||
== Progress Reports == | == Progress Reports == | ||
Progress reports are available [http://ileriseviye.org/blog/?tag=jet4learning here]. | Progress reports are available [http://ileriseviye.org/blog/?tag=jet4learning here]. | ||
== Source code == | |||
Source code of ClozeFox is publicly available at [http://github.com/emres/clozefox its GitHub repository]. | |||
== About the team == | == About the team == | ||