Transcript PowerPoint - University of Hawaii

MultiPod: a Multi Linguistic Word Learning System
Based on iPods
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Hasegawa, Kazunori, Satoko Amemiya, Keiichi Kaneko
Haruko Miyakoda, Wataru Tsukahara
Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan
[email protected]
Learning material made by learner
Introduction
• 3 crucial conditions for effective and efficient language learning (Willis 1996)
1. exposure to the target language
2. use of the language
3. motivation in learning the language
In this system, the learners can participate in making the learning material.
• Multimedia technology can effectively assist language learning (Pennington 1996)
The learner takes a short movie or the still picture.
MultiPod is an educational foreign word learning system which is based on the
iPods. The user can easily make learning materials of short movie by themselves.
Also, they can download materials from web database that they want to learn.
The learners can learn foreign words at any time and anyplace by transferring
their materials to their iPods via iTunes.
The movie/picture is fed to the system.
Reference
button
1. The user enters the spelling, the
meaning of the word and the
movie/still image file path. Then,
the user can refer to a file from the
reference button.
Spelling
Meaning
2. When the user clicks the conversion
button, the system begins to make
learning materials.
Movie/still
image file
Select words
User
Screen of generation material
Make material
User
Download material
User
iTunes
A learning material consists of a 5 second movie/still image, text data and sound
data. During the five seconds, the pronunciation of the word is repeated twice,
and the spelling and the meaning of the word are displayed as subtitles.
Movie/still image
User
iPod
Web database
Conversion
button
Spelling ＆ Meaning
Pronunciation
Learning Material
Spelling
Meaning
Pronunciation
Learning material
0
5sec
Example of learning materials
Outline of MultiPod
Why use iPods?
Portability & Mobility
The users can share their materials
among the users by registering them to
the Web database. The users also can
evaluate the contents created by others.
• easy to carry
• learning materials may be replayed as many times as necessary
• easier for learners to create own learning materials compared to other media
• movies can be used as learning materials
cf. experiment by Al-Seghayer 2001
video clips + text explanation vs. pictures + text explanation
result: using video clips had better effect on learning
Screen of web database
Evaluation experiment and result
Concluding remarks
We conducted an evaluation experiment in order to evaluate the effectiveness of MultiPod.

• 10 subjects in our university
• 10 words
• Learning materials created by the subjects
(2 words)
• Learning materials created by others(8 words)
• Translating the English words into Japanese.
We developed the educational foreign word learning system,
MultiPod
1. Exposure to L2 made easier
2. Motivation in learning maintained
3. Extensive learner-centered task made possible

The test result proved that the self-produced learning materials
are effective in retaining the meaning of the foreign words.
Acknowledgement
This study is partly supported by the Special Coordination Funds for Promoting Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology (MEXT) Japan. It is also partly supported by MEXT Fund for Promoting Research on Symbiotic Information
Technology.