ALC

Faculty Fellows Project Enhances Online Arabic Courses

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Nov 2020 19:08:42 +0000

Faculty Fellows Project Enhances Online Arabic Courses Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/16/2020 - 12:08

Sara Myers

Mona Attwa's Qahwa Arabi platform makes learning accessible and appealing for remote students

Mona Attwa, an Arabic instructor in the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, for realizing a long-time goal with the production of the online platform Qahwa Arabi. The platform went live on August 23. Mona sought ASSETT’s support for the project as a member of the 2019-2020 Faculty Fellows cohort.

The platform is intended to mimic the casual atmosphere of a coffee shop, but in a digital environment. (Qahwa Arabi means “coffee shop” in Arabic.) Attwa describes it as “a space for students to feel comfortable with learning and being engaged with the [Arabic] language.” And this platform comes just in time as learning has moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Qahwa Arabi provides a more authentic way for students to engage with the Arabic language when learning remotely. Further, the platform allows for Arabic to become more accessible and appealing to a wider audience. For example, the platform incorporates many interactive features including audio recordings for proper pronunciation, videos demonstrating how to draw the letters, and flashcards that help students study, test their knowledge, and play matching games.

Attwa explains that the platform “provides supplementary materials to guide our teaching of Arabic at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder.” While it’s a big accomplishment to get this far, she is eager to expand the platform, which currently covers the first five weeks of the beginning Arabic course (ARר 1010). Her eventual goal is to expand its coverage to the entire ten-week introductory curriculum as well as to other courses in the Arabic program. Attawa is also seeking feedback from her current students on how to make Qahwa Arabi even better.

Attwa was first inspired to create this resource in 2016 after attending a workshop focused on incorporating video into the classroom environment. It was then that she noticed a gap in technological resources. She realized that not all platforms are able to be adapted into the Arabic classroom due the nature of the language and script. It was upon this realization that she came up with the idea to develop her own platform on which Arabic instructors, like herself, can upload materials and enhance their courses to help students learn the language better.

Attwa was able to bring her concept into fruition by collaborating with web developers and graphic designers, thanks to support and funding provided by her partners at ASSETT, ALTEC, TechMark DS (a Boulder-based internet marketing service), and Aman Alchukr, who designed the logo and theme. She expressed her appreciation for her time as a Faculty Fellow, saying that she is grateful for the opportunity to learn from the other members of the program and that ASSETT helped her translate her ambitious ideas into concrete steps so that she could really push forward on this project.

ASSETT is proud to support dedicated faculty who seek to improve learning for our diverse student population. Amanda McAndrew, facilitator of the Faculty Fellows program, readily admits that she was skeptical that this project would come to fruition: “I just thought it would take too much money, but I am so excited to see all that Mona has accomplished. This is one of our top Faculty Fellows projects ever!”

Kudos to Mona Attwa on this accomplishment! We look forward to seeing future iterations of Qahwa Arabi.

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Knapczyk Implements Flipped Classroom in Hindi Course

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 19:42:00 +0000

Knapczyk Implements Flipped Classroom in Hindi Course Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/04/2016 - 13:42

Peter Knapczyk, a visiting Assistant Professor in the Asian Languages and Civilizations Department, completed the Fall 2015 ASSETT Teaching with Technology Seminar. He implemented the use of a flipped classroom by using Urdu video tutorials and online web assignments in order to teach the Urdu script without interrupting in-class time used for Hindi instruction.

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Teaching and Learning Challenge

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder offers a three-year course sequence in Hindi through which students achieve advanced proficiency in the language. My project for this fall’s “Teaching with Technology” seminar focuses on how to use technology to introduce the Urdu script in our Hindi courses. Hindi has a close relationship with Urdu, in that these two languages are nearly identical in their grammatical structure and colloquial vocabulary. This close relationship presents a unique opportunity for students of Hindi, who can achieve basic proficiency in Urdu with relatively little additional study. For this reason, many universities have experimented with incorporating elements of Urdu into their Hindi curriculum.

The biggest obstacle that prevents students of Hindi from learning Urdu is the fact that the two languages are written in different scripts. Unfortunately, learning the Urdu script can be quite challenging and time-consuming, as it typically requires some ten hours of classroom instruction before students are comfortable with the basics of the script and are ready to begin reading authentic texts. This poses a problem for instructors who wish to integrate the Urdu script into a course whose primary focus is Hindi; namely, how best to introduce the Urdu script without disrupting the course’s Hindi language instruction?

With my project for the “Teaching with Technology” seminar, I attempted to address this problem by creating a series of “flipped classroom” lessons on the Urdu script featuring video tutorials and web-based assessment. These video tutorials are designed to teach students the script step-by-step with minimal guidance from a “real” instructor. Each video tutorial is accompanied by an online quiz, allowing students to monitor their understanding and progress independently.

Plans for Implementation

These “flipped classroom” tutorials have two main components. First is a series of ten instructional videos that teach students how to read and write the Urdu script. Each video is 5-10 minutes in duration and focuses on one or two of the traditional groupings of the alphabet (approximately 5-8 letters). The videos will be hosted on Youtube and their content will be a mix of explanation, demonstration, and exercises. To create these videos, I have used audio and video recording equipment (microphones, USB audio interface, camera), a Bamboo tablet, and software such as Camtasia Studio, Reaper, and Powerpoint.

The second component of this project is a series of online quizzes that allows students to gauge their comprehension and progress independently. To create these quizzes, I used Google forms and linked them to the video tutorials on Youtube.

Taken together, these materials are intended to be a self-contained course that will fit the needs of a variety of learning contexts. For my own courses, I plan to incorporate these lessons in my Intermediate Hindi courses, assigning one video lesson per week over a semester. But another instructor might choose to cover the same material over a two week period by assigning one video per day.

Indicators of Success

The online quizzes will be the primary indication for whether students have properly understood and mastered each element of the Urdu script. The quizzes provide immediate feedback, allowing students to pinpoint the elements they need to review in the videos. Ideally, the feedback from these quizzes will enable students to proceed more or less independently through the series of videos, master the basic rudiments of the script, and begin completing assignments in which they read and write the Urdu script.

Reflection

Because I was not teaching a Hindi course this fall, I have not been able to assess the effectiveness of this “flipped classroom” approach within an actual course. But I have shared demos of the tutorials with students and have been satisfied with their ability to learn elements of the Urdu script independently. When I implement these lessons in the fall, I will be able to gauge how well these lessons solve the problems described above for introducing the Urdu script in our Hindi courses. In terms of technology, the two main challenges I see for the future of this project are (1) the lack of compatibility between assessment software and Urdu fonts, and (2) the inability of software to assess the accuracy of students’ writing in Urdu.

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Using Timeline JS for Self-Directed Learning in Adil's Course

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 20:05:00 +0000

Using Timeline JS for Self-Directed Learning in Adil's Course Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/20/2016 - 13:05

Sabahat Adil, an Assistant Professor of Arabic in Asian Languages and Civilizations, plans to implement Timeline JS into her Islamic Culture and the Iberian Peninsula Course. Adil hopes for students to use Timeline JS to be in charge of their own learning and to create their own foundation of knowledge. Adil completed the Fall 2015 ASSETT Teaching with Technology Seminar.

[soundcloud width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/298660755&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false"][/soundcloud]

Teaching and Learning Challenge

My courses bring together a range of disciplines, including literature, history, and religion. Even though the courses are multidisciplinary to some degree, they require a concrete understanding of foundational historical material, which is comprised of data including dates, names, etc. In the past, I have required students to gain familiarity with such material by providing it to them myself in the form of a timeline, lectures, or history survey texts. As a participant in the Teaching with Technology Seminar (Fall Semester 2015), I aim to discover new ways of facilitating student-directed learning of such historical material in order to 1) allow students to experience firsthand the complex layering through which the past must be understood and 2) spend more time in class on the assigned literary and cultural texts rather than on the foundational material. By participating in the Seminar, I look forward to discovering technologies that will help me transcend these two learning goals. By leaving the two aforementioned goals unaddressed, I believe that students in my courses will spend most of their time memorizing historical data that I have provided rather than begin to understand the complexity and nuances that govern the past. Furthermore, they will fail to develop an understanding of how historical data allows us to construct, rather than merely inherit, knowledge.

The course that I aim to make a technological intervention in in order to achieve the two learning goals highlighted above is titled Islamic Culture and the Iberian Peninsula (ARר 3230). 24 students are enrolled in it. In this course, we examine Islamic, especially Arab, culture and history as it relates to the Iberian Peninsula from the year 711 CE to the present. It has been approved for the Core Curriculum in the category of Historical Context, thus attracting a diverse student body.

Plans for Implementation

In the current iteration of the course, I have asked students to complete a series of assignments, including four response papers on various relevant themes as well as a final project. For the final project, students undertake a set of tiered assignments, which include a project summary, an annotated bibliography, a presentation, and the culminating research paper. Even though by this point they are generally familiar with the foundational historical material, based on a timeline, lectures, and readings that I have provided, I am increasingly interested in developing ideas about how I can incorporate self-directed learning of said historical material as a part of the assignment sequence.

The technological intervention that I aim to implement in the course in order to incorporate such self-directed learning is called Timeline JS, a tool developed by the Northwestern University Knight Lab. This open-source tool provides opportunities for individuals and groups to build multimedia-rich timelines. To create the timeline, one inputs text, along with links to images and other forms of multimedia, should one choose, into a Google spreadsheet. Once published, a timeline is generated. It fundamentally changes students’ engagement with data, in this case, historical data, by allowing them to develop a dynamic understanding of the past rather than provide them with a series of dates, events, etc. I plan to incorporate Timeline JS next time I teach this course to satisfy the need that students have for concrete historical data, but in a way that puts them in charge of their learning and allows them to create a foundation for their knowledge rather than the professor doing so.

When I first taught the course, I created a fairly rudimentary text-only timeline, which one technologically savvy student then used to produce a more visually appealing timeline through Timeline JS. This got me thinking that I could a) do more with historical material and b) integrate the creation of such a timeline as a part of the course assignments. Next time I teach the course, I plan to have students work in groups to collaborate to create interactive timelines throughout the duration of the course. As the course progresses, they will have access to several “master” timelines to consult for their response papers and final projects. They will build the timelines throughout the duration of the course through weekly assignments whereby students, in their groups, will input material into the timelines, staying roughly two weeks ahead of where we are in the course chronologically. I will randomly call upon groups in the class to share what they have contributed to the timelines that week.

Indicators of Success

I have developed group-based and individual indicators of success in order to measure the impact of Timeline JS on student learning as a whole. Groups as a whole will receive points that will fall into a class participation category in accordance with what they have contributed to their timelines in a given week. In order to account for individual disparity in contributions, I will also ask individuals in a given group to submit written reflections of their own work as well as those of their peers in the given group, which will ultimately also factor into the assessment. On an individual basis, I will also assess individual students based on their citation and use of these timelines during class discussions, response papers, and the final projects.

Reflection

Ultimately, I believe that such a technological intervention will positively impact students’ experiences and also help me address my overall learning goals. Students will be able to develop their analytical capabilities by developing their own timelines. Furthermore, they will be able to work collaboratively to develop such timelines in groups. In terms of learning goals, such an intervention will allow me to focus on furthering analytical textual analysis in the course itself, which is the ultimate goal of the class, rather than lecture to them or assign historical survey texts. As a 3000-level course, I prefer to have discussions regarding the texts assigned form the basis of the course rather than spend class time on historical material. This technological intervention will provide opportunities for just this rather than spend many weeks lecturing to them or asking them to read historical surveys.

When I implement this intervention, I plan to attend to the following potential pitfalls: 1) students will need some direction regarding the amount and type of information that gets posted as well as appropriate sources; 2) students may need to be incentivized in order to ensure continued contact with the timeline beyond that which is required to get a passing grade; and 3) some students may be hesitant to work with a new technology, so I will need to focus on assessment in order to encourage such individuals. In general, anytime I implement a new technological intervention, I plan to make sure that it is given a low-stakes position vis-à-vis the course requirements as a whole. This will help me incorporate the intervention into future learning designs, but in a way that provides room for experimentation and discovery with ever-changing technologies.

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My Quest for a Website

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 06:00:00 +0000

My Quest for a Website Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/25/2012 - 00:00

by Terry Kleeman
Asian Languages and Civilizations

This is a not-too-convoluted tale of my search for a website. This website would serve to represent my academic work to the world, but more importantly, function as home to the Daoist Text Initiative, basically the continuance of an NEH Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers that I directed and co-taught here on the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ campus last summer (2011). I am a member of the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ-Boulder faculty teaching Chinese language, thought, and religion in the Asian Languages and Civilizations department. I have a moderate level of expertise with computers and the web; I used to format simple webpages in HTML for use in one of the predecessors to Desire2Learn but never went beyond that. Before that I had a simple webpage that I composed in Word then saved as an HTML page, but it disappeared some years ago (more on that mystery below). So I think I am a pretty average user of information technology in most ways.

My goals in creating a website were several: I wanted a personal webpage that relayed my academic interests and served as a repository for some of some of my earlier publications. I also wanted a website for the NEH Seminar that I was planning for that summer. There were some specific requirements from NEH, too, so I did not have a completely free hand. I would need at least a page describing the Seminar, a page of technical information on who was eligible and how to apply, and a page about Boulder and accommodations here.

The next step was deciding how to create these webpages. Converting Word files never worked well, and it did not seem a reasonable option for a website with so many different pages. I had once taken a workshop through ITS (now OIT) on using Dreamweaver to design a website, but you could only use the online version of this software on campus, I had no funds to buy a personal copy, and I rarely had time while on campus to play with websites, so my limited skills had atrophied. I first looked at a program I found recommended online called Rapidweaver (http://www.realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver/overview/). It proved fairly adept at putting together simple webpages, but I found that if I wanted anything as complicated as a table to organize navigation buttons, I would have to buy or find online some more code to add to my basic program. I didn’t really understand how the pieces of software were supposed to interact, and ultimately abandoned the program. I also didn’t like that it put a distinctive logo for the software on each page it produced.

I’ve been a Mac user for several years and a colleague had mentioned using iWeb to make his personal website, so I decided to explore that. It turned out to have an easily understood interface and templates for several types of webpages that seemed convenient. I was able to cut and paste elements from what I had created under Rapidweaver then go on to add photos, images, etc. quite easily. Thus I was able to produce several fairly readable webpages. Initially, I hosted them on the iWeb site. iWeb has now been discontinued by Apple, so this is no longer a viable option, but the software still works on the latest version of OSX.

I was eventually able to move the website from iWeb to university servers, but this was not without incident. It turned out that my university web account had been blocked back in 2004 because of fears I had a virus. I always wondered why I couldn’t find the simple webpage I had put up in the early 2000s. I replaced that with the new pages produced through iWeb and my basic website was up. I created an easy to use shortened URL (using TinyURL) for the website and advertised it widely. This website was effective in gathering participants for our NEH Seminar, which was held with only minor snafus from July 18 to August 5 of 2011.

Leading up to the Seminar, we had applied for and been awarded a supplementary Digital Enhancement Grant, that gave us around $10,000 to build a website that would make available the products of the Seminar to a wider audience of scholars and students. In our proposal, we promised to build a grand website with a variety of features that would appeal to a wide swath of people and would be effective in promoting the study of Daoist scriptures. These features included an archive of translated texts (together with the original text), a crowd-sourced glossary of technical terms, guides to teaching specific aspects of Daoist history and culture, and a calendar of ritual events and observances related to Daoism. Of these, the glossary and calendar were conceived of as group projects with scholars from around the world contributing new definitions to the glossary and new events to the calendar. Moreover, we undertook to maintain and develop this website for a period of at least five years.

I was clearly out of my league, and simple website creation aids like iWeb or Rapidweaver were not sophisticated enough for such a task. Moreover, there would be special problems with this website because of the use of Chinese characters, some fairly obscure, that would have to display correctly on a variety of different computers and other electronic devices. I was particularly worried about keeping the Chinese text and translated English text aligned somehow in the Translation section. Clearly, I would need a trained web designer with some specific skills.

The search did not prove easy, in part because I really did not know what I was looking for, but also because of university regulations. OIT has many trained web designers, but they could not work for me because my project was not funded by the university. Nor could any OIT staff point me to a specific person at OIT who might be interested in doing this on the side, as this would be showing favoritism. At the same time, my departmental administrative assistant warned me about the difficulty of getting someone totally new into the university payroll system. The best I could do was to send an email to a site where it would be made available to everyone who might be interested in this. I would have to have a pretty clear idea of what I wanted in order to advertise it.

Another issue was where to host the site. My current location, on a college server, only permitted a site of 50 MB, which is quite small. A friend who runs a similar site devoted to Buddhism suggested that my site might eventually grow as large as one GB. He also pointed an advantage to hosting on a commercial site: the IT staff is available 24/7, whereas most universities shut down for the weekend and are available only limited hours during weekdays. Asking around, I found that many knowledgeable friends recommended InMotion Hosting. Looking into this, I found their most economical business-class plan offered unlimited disk space and unlimited monthly transfers for $5.95 a month. Over five years, this would amount to roughly $360, a sizable amount, but workable within my budget, assuming the web designer was not too expensive.

In my continuing quest for a web designer, I filled out a form on the University Communications website, stating my needs. I was soon contacted by Jon Leslie, Assistant Director of University Communications. We eventually talked on the phone, then met in person. After explaining my needs, and the special requirements for dealing with Asian scripts, Jon told me that his group was interested in using this as a test case for integrating non-Western scripts into ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ webpages. He also informed that the university was testing an industrial-strength hosting platform, and that we could host the website on that site for free. He was able to accommodate my $2,000 budget for website design, and I am now anxiously awaiting my brand new website. I am sure that there will be a lot of work in the future setting everything up, but I am optimistic I will end up with an attractive, functional website designed and hosted by ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ. I have two graduate students working on preparing and proofreading material to be placed on the site. I anticipate that all will be ready by the end of the summer [2011].

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Using Audacity for Teaching Advanced Chinese

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:00:00 +0000

Using Audacity for Teaching Advanced Chinese Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/30/2010 - 00:00

Learning a new language is no easy task. And Jin Chen, an instructor in the Department of Asian Languages, is more than familiar with what it takes. First and foremost, talking in a language class is really important. Learning to speak Chinese requires certain logic in order to demonstrate coherence. Jin explains that she tests her students frequently to make sure they are on the right track.

Recently, she began using Audacity, a voice recording software program, to give her students speaking assignments through ŷ��ڱ��ƵLearn. Every other Friday she uploads four recordings that she has made, along with an associated set of questions that the students are required to answer. In addition, she gives a speaking assignment that requires students to record their own speaking based on patterns she gives them to follow. Students upload their voice recordings on ŷ��ڱ��ƵLearn where Jin then listens to them to provide students with feedback. This takes students about 50 minutes to complete.

Before using Audacity, Jin gave one-on-one tests in person. However, without a teaching assistant, this is quite time consuming. Jin explained that Audacity has allowed her to continue testing at the frequency she wants. And so far, most students have delivered very good speeches in their recordings. She has found that many students enjoy being able to talk on their own time. Jin recalled that in face-to-face testing some students would get intimidated, impacting the quality of their speaking.

Though Jin is pleased with the use of Audacity, there are potential technical problems she has avoided with a few tips and tricks. First, file size is an issue to consider. Student’s can post a file to ŷ��ڱ��ƵLearn that is up to 10 minutes long. However, it is important to convert the Audacity file to MP3 before you upload, which significantly reduces the file size.

To get started off on the right foot, Jin recommends instructors spend the first class day showing students how to download the software and upload a file. It took her about 20 minutes to show her students all of the steps in class. This will help to reduce the number of problems later in the semester. Jin also ensures things go smoothly by giving her students specific instructions of what they should do in case of technical problems.

Tools like Audacity are simple to use and can help language instructors “scale up” their class by providing more opportunities for practice outside of class. If you are interested in examples of language exercises, see the ALTEC website for a list of exercises available in eleven different languages.

--Written by Amanda Porter, ASSETT Assistant Director

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Learning Japanese With Technology: Frustration to Confidence

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Learning Japanese With Technology: Frustration to Confidence Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 08/05/2009 - 00:00

Minori Murata has big plans for her teaching.

A Japanese instructor at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder for 8 years, Murata has taught the language every year, always with physical materials and following a similar teaching process. In Spring 2009, this changed. It was then that she began to incorporate technology into the course.

Japanese, Murata shares, is a difficult language to learn. “If you’ve never taken a foreign language completely different from English, you might not have felt the kind of frustration my students feel,” she shares. She likens student’s abilities when they first start Japanese to a child’s, “My students have said that they feel like little kids; they feel they cannot say anything at their intellectual level.”

This led her to want to help her students learn the language faster, and better. She wanted them to get more practice, so they could get better at speaking and listening to the language. She knew that a technology like ŷ��ڱ��ƵLearn would help her easily provide listening exercises to her students.

She started slow, using ŷ��ڱ��ƵLearn to post grades, homework assignments and to upload listening exercises for her first year Japanese students. “In class we focus on speaking, which means they get to listen to their classmates,” Murata explains. “But they needed more listening, so I decided to put some online for extra at-home practice.”

Inexplicably to Murata, the same assignments that students had a more difficult time with on paper, became easier online. “Somehow, they felt like the process was easier. They got started faster,” Minori shrugs, slightly mystified. She decided that if student’s found the process of learning Japanese easier online, she would continue to use it.

So what began as using technology minimally will expand to further applications in the future. In Fall 2009, she will use the ASSETT funded Dean’s Fund for Excellence award to assist her in maintaining her use of ŷ��ڱ��ƵLearn. She will continue to post listening exercises and online assignments for her now second year Japanese students.

In the future, she plans to add grammar video clips and audio-capable online flashcards, as well as other technologies she and her students feel will assist in learning the language

Murata knows that putting all this information online, and making it accessible at home, will give students the tools to learn Japanese better. Her hope is that with these tools, her student’s will more quickly move from feeling like little kids to feeling like competent Japanese speakers.

-- Written by: Kate Vander Wiede, ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ' 09, ASSETT Staff

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