Like many other fellow students, I was impressed most by the quiz feature on Gauchospace demonstrated by the capable assistant of the language technology team of UCSB. Thanks to this course and Dr. Chun, I got to know about the existence of such an excellent resource on this campus. Back to the quiz feature, what made me excited was not the way how a quiz with different types of questions and multi-media formats could be put online, because an online version of quiz was the same as a traditional one in essence in terms of its content and what students are tested on, it was the instant feedback enabled by automatic grading function in most cases that had made it different. This kind of timely feedback is exactly what language learners need, and it could serve as valuable supplements to instructor and peer feedback as well as helpful references for instructors to make well-informed adjustment in and outside classrooms. Besides, I would love to see that in the near future, technology would also help with the progress in "testing the untestable" in language education, such as knowledge of the pragmatics and intercultural communicative competence, etc. At last, I keep wondering if all these powerful tools such as the Moodle course management system, wiki, and Classroom 2.0 could work well in China, just like I really doubt that I could use Google-docs there as Google has already partially retreated from China in 2010.
2 comments:
Hi Yang Rong,
I enjoyed reading your post. I agree that the ability for the quiz (or exercise) to give instant feedback is a great feature of the quiz tool. I remember learning a lot from a similar tool used in my Japanese classes. As teachers, it is frustrating when we spend a long time correcting a students' assignment only to give it back to them and notice that they don't even look it over before putting it in their bag. If the online tool could give the reason an answer is incorrect and then have students try again, I think that would be helpful. Some students need some kind of reason to LOOK at the feedback. If they can learn why their choice is incorrect and use this information to get the correct answer, this may really help them absorb rules about the language. Similarly, it is good to know why an answer is CORRECT, just in case it was just a guess.
Hi Rong,
I was also impressed by the automatic grading function. Teachers can use it to assess and give feedback on various types of exercises, such as vocabulary learning, listening, reading and writing. Speaking might be difficult to assess with this function. However, I recently heard about a Chinese company working with a speech recognition research team from Tsinghua University, and found this cool product introduction on its website: http://www.lingshengxin.com/en/sales.asp?id=41
The Automatic Spoken English Certificate (ASEC)engine "understands spoken language; and analyzes its speech elements, and provides an expert feedback to improve the learning results."
They have used this technology to develop a online Vhomework system for K-12 level students. Here is the manual: http://223.202.2.9/upload/faq/vHomework_manual.pdf
I wish I could try this product! Have you ever heard about it?
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