Tuesday Notes

General ideas about the program

• separate back-end from front-end
• separate linguistic (declarative) information from the procedural code

• The language-dependent file be declarative
• The language-independent file be procedural
• We must also change the structure of the database
• Abstract ling features, menu items

B-A

Leksa

Missing in Leksa: levels

You click on Clothes and get traditional Saami clothes, before the basic clothes. The same thing goes for birds, so rare birds are dominant.

So: Levels of vocabulary.

I like Morfa-C

Now you choose working on bisyllabics, trisyllabics. This could be re

Morfa-S is useful for some people, but for verbs it is good that you see more of the sentence. I would like there to be levels there as well.

They need as much linguistic input as possible.

The learning path:

We had the function of letting the teacher see what the student did. As a teacher, I would like to see tests, so that I do not need to make tests myself all the time. I would like them to go in and do the test, so that the program grades it.

Also, if it not organised as a test, 50% of the students will not do it. But if the tasks are named test, and given as a requirement, then all of them will do it. I would thus be able to force the students to go in.

The last time it was work on this, B-A was working with a class, and saw what the students did. Some went in and worked, others not. This was illuminating to the teacher.

Today's solution is actually already better.

Leksa:

More info

Sound

Audio files

Erlend

The site oahpa.no

There is no explanation on what Oahpa really is.

On http://oahpa.no there are logs of links, but no explanation

If I know that davvi means "North" I would perhaps press that link, but I would actually find the course kursa. The reference to kursa is, unfortunately, hidden somewhere down there.

I find it hard to navigate on the Oahpa pages.

I need a home page with the rehearse links along the other links, like dictionary etc.

The tasks were also too hard for me, they demanded that I wrote exactly correct.

The names Vasta, Sahka, Leksa are not in the dictionary. I assumed they were North Saami words. So, what do they mean?

All the words on the Oahpa pages should be in NDS. Also all words in Kursa

There are all too many links on the http://oahpa.no pages. We want more pages, less links.

The dictionary

I use the dictionary a lot, it is good. The placename have been a great help.

I miss the autocomplete feature.

When I studied Russian I did not have access to these features.

Why Giellatekno and Oahpa? What is Oahpa, anyway?

There is no link to Kursa, neither from http://oahpa.no/davvi/ nor from the links Ressurssat on the task pages.

The structure of Oahpa 2.0.

Modules:

• backend (data processing)
  • exercise generation
  • database installation
  • user authentication
• frontend
  • different games, how they look like on the screen, etc.

Using FST live or not? Some FST-s are quick, others are slow.

Logging the user actiivity should also be possible when inlogging is done via Google or FB account, or even if the user is not logged in.

Oahpa for mobile devices

Technical: We can use e.g. Bootstrap to build a mobile version.

User interface

Not possible to have so many menus from left to right. E.g. Morfa-S - maybe we can decrease the number of menus. Interface language and dialect will be chosen on the front page. The task will be defined by max two menus.

On mobile devices we should go more for clicking on words instead of typing a lot of characters. Multiple choice instead of free input.

Vasta-S or Morfa-C for mobile devices:

Vasta mobile: users build up sentences with existing words on the screen, but we shouldn't show non-existing wordforms (wrong illative suffix) or non-existing sentences, have to be careful about exposing users to incorrect input Morfa-S mobile: option for multiple-choice

One of the answers is correct, the others contain one or more other forms of the given lemmas. Multiple choice (as in Konteaksta mc exercise) is better than presenting wrong sentences. The Sámi languages are not so widely spread in the written form, so exposing the students to the wrong forms is bad. It is better to give a list of correct forms (of different cases).

So:

1. as little information on the screen as possible
2. clicking on words/menus instead of typing long text

We have a scheme about features and tasks. Another thing (object) to deal with in Oahpa: memory of the generated tasks or timeline of the exercise.

Presenting five exercises at once is arbitrary. We can give the users a choice how many exercises they want to see at once.

Present all words coming in the next task/level, the student can even print it out.

If we take the exercises one by one then after ten answers the user gets the feedback: you have done all 10 correct! Then the next ten words will be on the next level. The levels can be determined by the frequency in the everyday speech. Level 1: 50 most frequent words Level 2: Those 50 plus 50 little less frequent etc. Words in the sections (lists) of different level, so that teacher can download the list, or the student can look at the list of the words on the next level.

Levels in morfa could constrain possible wordforms to draw from, ex. start with Verb 1p, then later add 2nd person

The Kursa / Oahpa sme and sma Grammars -- we want them as .pdf and .epub (!)

Core MorfaS forms:

• Prsent Sg1, Sg2, Sg3, + then: Pl1, Pl2, Pl3
• Then Past, then other modes later on
• Number: Singular before plural

Two paths to "the top"

1. By reading "the book" (the Kursa or similar): Start on chapter 7, and get deeplinked to advanced stuff
2. By doing the exercises from scratch, and going up one level to the next,
   1. getting "money", cheering hippopotamuses, a new colour on your karate belt or whatever
3. guiding the student
   1. default: packages with different kinds of grammar/vocabulary, on different levels, going from one level to the next: A1-2-3-4... B1-2-3-4... C1-2-3-4...
   2. also possible to go to a particular exercise
   3. links from course material

Teacher interface for adding forms that are often misspelled, with comments to the student. Leksa: teacher to add more accepted translations Button in interface: User can suggest new translations, or new words & sentences.

new task types

existing task types

1. leksa: translation - word -> word
2. morfa-s: inflection - word -> wordform
   1. mobile: fancy solution to avoid writing
3. morfa-c: inflection - sentence -> sentence
4. numra: translation - numeral -> text, text -> numeral
5. vasta: inflection - sentence lemmas -> inflected sentence
   1. mobile: fancy solution to avoid writing
6. sahka: dialogue

new task types

1. dictation: audio -> word / sentence. + potential for analyzing input for feedback
2. dictation: audio -> multiple choice / minimal pairs of new sounds
3. images: image -> text/word, text/word -> image.
   1. could use vasta machinery, but presenting images instead
4. translation: defining language of question and answer/user input
5. feedback on writing

getting going?

1. produce a demo for Russian, with a subset of words, to test with students & instructors

Database structure outline for linguistic features and menus

wednesday

1. blank page and colored pens: technical planning project structure based on the above notes
2. how much ped data to copy to new pedagogical directory icall