The process of rosanie's project and thesis

sydney opera house

2006-07-05T02:39:00.000-04:00

finally I found the best reference web site in my mind that I was trying to look for quite a while.
http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/sections/tours/virtual_tour/vrtour2.asp

Shared objects

2006-05-31T11:22:00.000-04:00

for the ranking function:
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=LiveDocs_Parts&file=00002661.html

MFA Thesis (3) outline - second draft

2006-05-28T01:05:00.000-04:00

Thesis Statement:

Traditionally, people learn a language with an instructor in person. Today, there are many study materials used as teaching aids and for self-study that allow people to have a more diversified means to learn a language. However, self-study language materials are still lacking in many ways, particularly in interaction and immersion. My goal is to design an interactive experience for supporting learning the Chinese language that can be used to as a teaching aid for instructors who teach native English speakers Chinese.

Outline:

1. Overview

1-1 Traditional methods of language teaching- interviews with Chinese language teachers
1-2 Existing language teaching materials- survey of teaching materials

2. Interactive teaching materials
2-1 Strengths and weaknesses of existent teaching materials
2-2 How those materials affect language learning?

3. Different materials for different studying purposes
3-1 Writing
3-2 Speaking
3-3 Listening
3-4 Character and Vocabulary
3-5 Reading

4. Apply interactive interface materials to teaching language
4-1 The relationship of an interactive interface and language instructor
4-2 If interactive interface can substitute Chinese language instructors?
4-3 How interactive interface can enhance Chinese language instructors?
4-4 Immersion

5. Conclusion

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In second draft, Professor suggest me add a concept about "Immersion". The most effective way for learning a language is immersing in an environment where people speak only that language. How to create such an environment for interactive learning materials? It is impossible having a real person talking to you. In my project, however, "chat room" may be a good idea for this purpose. Learners can practice chinese typing and talking with other chinese speakers via internet at the same time. Otherwise, I am thinking to add a recording function into my project, learners can record their pronunciation then play repeatly, and compare the original one.

Progress 15

2006-05-28T00:50:00.000-04:00

After prototype presentation, the hierarchy of my navigation need to be revised. Get rid of the opeing button and enter the main intetface directly. Highlight the section(room) while mouseover, so that users can be aware of where they are at. Thinking about change the index map to a more appropriate place and how to utilize adequately the empty space. I have to remember one thing, simple is the best.

Transition animation rendering is done. Video shooting and editing is done. I am redesign the interface and working on whole structure of programming in actionscript. The biggest problem I need to figute out is how to code the "ranking function"???

Interface - rooms rooms!

2006-05-24T11:13:00.000-04:00

Living room

dinning room

Stairs

Kitchen

Bedroom

Recent reference websites

2006-05-22T11:31:00.000-04:00

http://www.designmeltdown.com
http://www.netdiver.net/

http://www.sonystyle.com.mx/lounge/
http://www.stadia.ru/
http://www.fillypa.com/
http://www.agencynet.com/
http://rm.images.at/
http://www.saltedherring.com/
http://seven-degrees.com/
http://www.kylehaapala.com

Progress 14

2006-05-21T23:02:00.000-04:00

Interface design is pretty much done. There are couple videos need to be shot and edited in this week. Now I am more working on functionality and coding in Flash. Need add some different type mini games, test the navigation and map panning.

Content research (12) New Concept

2006-05-14T15:54:00.000-04:00

One Professor shared a new idea which he got from GDX with me. "Serious game" : intended to not only entertain users, but have additional purposes such as education and training. They can be similar to educational games, but are primarily focused on an audience outside of primary or secondary education. Serious games can be of any genre and many of them can be considered a kind of edutainment, but the main goal of a serious game is not to entertain, though the potential of games to engage is often an important aspect of the choice to use games as a teaching tool. A serious game is usually a simulation which has the look and feel of a game, but is actually a simulation of real-world events or processes. (quote from : Wikipedia) It is a whole new trend in game field. I may apply some ideas into my projects

I found a lot references from internet, here are some I have read or viewed in this week.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_game

http://www.seriousgames.org/

http://www.seriousgamessummit.com/

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/play.html?pg=6

http://www.serious-game.fr/wordpress/index.php (it is french, I just views some graphics)

http://www.nextscale.com/

http://seriousgamessource.com/

http://gvo.odorudaisousasen.com/2006/05/serious_gaming_gvo.php

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9077

mark some useful websites

2006-05-10T03:34:00.000-04:00

Learning XML: http://www.w3schools.com/

Design issue: http://www.designmeltdown.com/

Chinese Learning software: http://www2.rosettastone.com/en/

3d source: http://www.highend3d.com

MFA Thesis (2) outline - first draft

2006-05-07T23:30:00.000-04:00

Thesis Statement:
Traditionally, people always learn a language with a instructor. Due to the development of those language study materials, people have more chances to learn a language by themselves. But they all have some advantages and drawbacks. I feel this issue can be address by creating a idea about: How the interactive interface can substitute or enhance Chinese language instructors

Outline:

1. Overview
1-1 Traditional method of language teaching
1-2 Interactive teaching materials

2. Interactive teaching materials
2-1 Existent teaching materials
2-2 How those materials affect language learning?

3. Different materials for different studying purposes
3-1 Writing
3-2 Speaking
3-3 Listening
3-4 Character and Vocabulary
3-5 Reading

4. Apply interactive interface materials to teaching language
4-1 The relationship of an interactive interface and language instructor
4-2 If interactive interface can substitute Chinese language instructors?
4-3 How interactive interface can enhance Chinese language instructors?

5. Conclusion

Progress 13

2006-05-07T23:10:00.000-04:00

I guess I am a little bit behind my schedule. Hope it is not too late to catch them.

I am trying to edit my video, so that I can make a function that users can play video sentence by sentence.

I am almost done of all conversation contents and will shoot some this week.

I am studying XML right now and hope I can apply some into my project soon.

About the transition between the navigation of two rooms, I am reanimate in Maya, try to make it shorter. Then I am gonna to make those as individual swf files, so that I can keep the size of my main file small.

Progress 12

2006-05-04T18:37:00.000-04:00

After review, and, I pass my 45 review! I can concentrate on my thesis project and paper research. I got a lot of comments and suggestions from Professors while review, and I got some opinions from Professor Brenda as well. Now I am trying to integrate all of them.

At functional aspect, I need to make the hierarchy more clear, so that users can figure out main functions on the interface. Becuase I have different conversation topic put in different rooms of my interface, I should consider to add highlight while mouse moving, and add thumbnails or short description about the contents while mouseover. Others I may think about to tag those objects which showing in the room with chinese vocabulary and pronounciation, so users can learn about them by images.

About contents, I should focus more on teaching and learning issues. This is a learning language interface, how to make contents consistently and ordinally is what I am going to do more research.

I am gonna to apply XML into my project, it would make my interface more reusable and extendable. I can load those movieclips, texts, audio files externally. I might just need to update those contents and XML files and add different modules.

Progress 11~ house house!

2006-04-28T03:34:00.000-04:00

my interface is building.......

fisrt draft

add some textures...

GUI research (6)

2006-04-19T13:54:00.000-04:00

http://www.e-telegence.com/3d-graphic-design/3d-graphic-design.html

http://www.metropix.co.uk/mtpix/walkthroughs.aspx

MFA Thesis (1)

2006-04-19T11:20:00.000-04:00

I am trying to involve more about this topic as my MFA thesis:

How interactive learning interface can substitute for language instructors?

http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/showcase/index.cfm?event=casestudydetail&casestudyid=88990&loc=en_us

http://ivizlab.sfu.ca/media/elearn.pdf

http://babel.uoregon.edu/yamada/interact.html

http://www.cal.org/resources/Digest/0212morrison.html

Revising schedule and structure

2006-04-17T14:25:00.000-04:00

After quarter review, I think my initial plan is kind of too broad and may drive me crazy in this quarter. So I did some revising about my main structure and schedule in the continue 6 weeks.

I set a topic and make those conversations related this topic, so I can make my pieces more consistent.

Theme:
Planning a trip to Marian language country

Structure:
Living room – conversation1: airport
Dinning room – conversation2: food
Bedroom – conversation3: packing
Drawing room – conversation4: entertainment
Mini bar – conversation5: party

Schedule:
Week4 －
Shoot video
Record audio
Build interface of the rough mockup
Build interface “dinning room”
Study Actionscript
Design mini game
Revise Thesis Statement and outline

Week5 －
45 Review
Complete “dinning room”
Build interface “dinning room”
Build interface “bedroom”
Working on Actionscript

Week6 －
Build interface “bedroom”
Build interface “drawing room”
Working on Actionscript
Shoot video
Record audio
Survey
Design mini game
Complete “bedroom”

Week7 －
Build interface “drawing room”
Build interface “living room”
Working on Actionscript
Design mini game
Complete “drawing room”
Test and revise project

Week8 －
Build interface “Living room”
Working on Actionscript
Shoot video
Record audio
Complete “living room”

Week9 －
Testing and survey
Revising interface
working on Actionscript
Complete “mini bar”

Week10 －
Test and revise whole project
Survey

Progress 10 ~ MAYA

2006-04-16T23:41:00.000-04:00

HOHOHO~ Finally I have my first draft of my interface by MAYA, after picking it up by three weeks. I try to create objects that I can use on my interface in my assignments of 3d class. But I still have some trouble with lighting and textures. I hope I can finish one lesson at week 5.

First image render from MAYA~

Content research (11) chinese culture

2006-04-16T23:12:00.000-04:00

These are some information about eating and food in chinese culture

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/magazine/daily/14320553.htm

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/cuisine.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cuisine

http://chinesefood.about.com/library/weekly/aa012303a.htm

http://www.well.com/~indigo/crpintro.html

GUI research (5)

2006-04-16T23:07:00.000-04:00

There are some interior design built by 3d software~

image source : http://www.3dlinks.com/

Content research (10)

2006-04-13T01:27:00.000-04:00

It is a good example of learning chinese material: http://www.elanguage.cn/course/
The content structure is very similiar with what I am working right now.
I think I should think about how to make my project more unique.
What is my core spirit?

Thesis development (1)

2006-04-12T23:33:00.000-04:00

Thesis project is going well and on schedule. Now it's time to start on paper thesis statement and outline. But I still kind of get stuck on idea development. I keep asking my self this week, what is the core spirit of my project? This is a learning Chinese language piece including some introduction related Chinese culture and language development. The whole interactive functions are constructed by Flash and Actionscript 2.0. The interface is built by MAYA. There are also video, audio, text and mini game in this project. I think I should focus on interactive relevant issue. I remember Professor has ever asked me, how to make learning Chinese become more interesting? Yeah~ This is one of my main reasons to involve this topic more in my thesis project, after some research, I found most learning materials and software just offer contents and let users try to memorize as much as possible. However, I think the topic “how to make learning Chinese become more interesting?” is still too board and need to be narrowed more. Another idea came up is about “If interactive learning interface can substitute for language instructors?” Designers try to create more and more learning even teaching materials by multimedia in this recent decade; therefore, if users prefer to take programs at home by these software, do we still need language instructors in school? One Harvard University professor teaching Chinese has ever told me, an instructor teaching actually in class is very important and irreplaceable to learners. I think this would be an interesting topic. I read some theses in library and got some other, but all are also needed to be more specific, such as “How to apply Chinese culture elements on graphic user interface?”; “The application of Chinese Typography on digital media interface.” and so on. I haven't decided yet, I need to do more research and try to find a topic would be more worth and make sense.

Study(3) reading

2006-04-09T21:02:00.000-04:00

these were what I read in week 2

The Mandarin Offensive
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/mandarin.html

Micropayments Drive Asian Games
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70573-1.html

Now Starring on the Web: YouTube
http://www.wired.com/news/wireservice/0,70627-0.html?tw=wn_culture_1

Thesis reference resources

2006-04-09T20:51:00.000-04:00

how to write a thesis outline

• http://www.albany.edu/eas/170/outline.htm
• http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/thesis.html
• http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_outlin.html

Progress 9 ~ revising interface and content

2006-04-09T15:38:00.000-04:00

After reviewing my prototype demo in the beginning of this quarter, Professor Brathwaite and classmates gave me some comments and suggestions about my piece. First of all, I may think about use graphic symbols instead of text to represent buttons. They would be more clear and easy to recognize how the functions are. Although this is mainly for English speakers, but I believe they would be more fitted and friendly to use. I may also consider adding some elements of Chinese culture related with conversations in each lesson, so that users can learn not only language but also some culture stuff. Professor Brathwaite gave me an excellent suggestion is incorporate some ranking that let users see their progress improvement overtime. Users may have more confidence to study continuously.
In the future weeks, I will focus more on 3d-object interface building and create and program interactive functions. Hope I can accomplish at least one lesson before my 45 review.

spring (studio 2) schedule

2006-04-07T23:31:00.000-04:00

Week3 －
Revise content structure and details
Rewrite conversation
Build interface by Maya
Study Actionscript
Research about Chinese culture
Thesis Statement and outline

Week4 －
Shoot video
Record audio
Build interface by Maya
Study Actionscript
Design mini game
Revise Thesis Statement and outline

Week5 －
45 Review
Complete one lesson
Build interface by Maya
Study Actionscript

Week6 －
Build interface by Maya
Study Actionscript
Shoot video
Record audio
Survey

Week7 －
Build interface by Maya
Study Actionscript
Design mini game
Complete two lessons
Test and revise project

Week8 －
Build interface by Maya
Study Actionscript
Shoot video
Record audio

Week9 －
Build interface by Maya
Study Actionscript
Design mini game
Complete three lessons

Week10 －
Build interface by Maya
Study Actionscript
Test and revise whole project
Survey

Divide for studio1 and studio2

2006-04-03T12:22:00.000-04:00

Finally I finished my course Studio 1 last quarter. And I am taking the course Studio 2 in continuously quarter. So I am going to keep working on my project and hope it can be done by this quarter.
The articles listed in the catagories of Jan to Mar was done by Studio 1. After that is going to Studio 2.
In this quarter, I am gonna start the actual visual interface by MAYA (I really hope I can pick it as soon as possible, I am just a maya beginner >.<). Fortunately I only need to build the simple models relevant our daily life instead of realistic characters. There will be tons of progresses in this carzy quarter.
Actionscript is another big stuff what I keep working. I am trying to figure out different interactive Flash game for users to practice and examine how much they leaned with fun at the same time.
I believe I will need to do a lot of shooting and recording for my project content. And I also have to revise the content of those conversations in each lesson, make them more effective for my audience.

OK~keep working......

Studio 2 ~ thesis statement revising

2006-04-03T04:00:00.000-04:00

Thesis Statement
This project is an interactive interface designed for English speakers to learn Chinese language.

Description
I read a lot of articles and columns from Chinese newspapers and then got some ideas about my thesis. There are many talking about how Chinese language is becoming a new world-trend, and how many people are learning or trying to learn Chinese because of the fast development of China. One article (source: INDYSTAR.com / see blog posted by January 17) I read even mentioned that some high schools in the US may set Chinese as a second language. I am thinking that since Mandarin is my native language and interactive design is what I am learning right now in my graduate study, why don’t I try to design an interface for those people who want to learn Chinese? After I had an informal interview with my ESL professor, he is a english speaker and have worked in Taiwan for seven years, I am more determined to work on this subject. He told me about his studying experiences and what he thinks is necessary factor but he never experienced before. The present teaching materials for nonnative Chinese speakers are more focus on memorizing.

Speaking Chinese is not the difficult part; students just need to figure out how the pronunciations of four tones are different. But writing Chinese well is not as easy as speaking. There are thousands of characters, and they are quite difficult to explain by one rule. I will try to create a more interesting learning interface with colorful and attractive graphics and interactive functions to help beginning leaners. Therefore, how to make learning Chinese an interesting and effective process is what I am going to do in my thesis project.

Intended audience
The project is designed for the beginners who never learned Chinese before, especially for those who need to travel or deal with business in the countries in which the Mandarin language is the promary language.

Expectations
Starting to learn a second language is always a hard time. As my personal experiences of learning English, I have to get used of very different sentence and vocabulary structure. Besides I learn lessons from english teachers, I always try to find another way and material to improve my English skill and hope there are some very attractive interactive pieces can help me. But you know, most of them are just full of texts and machine pronunciation. I really want to add some fun stuff into my thesis project. I try to use video to present the conversation in our usual life, so that users can have chance to see how is the talking way of chinese people. Users can even turn off one character pronunciation to simulate they are talking with the other. I believe it may be much more interesting than just memorizing whole texts. People always make learning a language and taking an exam as an intuitive connection, because it is the one way to let them know how much achivements they have. Therefore, I try to design the tests for each lesson as an interactive game style, there may have time limited, score counted or ranking. Learners would get more fun and confidence from those mini game and give them more motivation to keep studying.

Mechanics
In this project, I am going to utilize videos in each lesson for showing how the conversation is going in real world. Users can study sentence by sentence with audio and English translation. After studying, users can test how much they learned by some interactive Flash game. I am also trying to use animation to show some culture knowledge and Chinese character development. About the interface, I am gonna to use 3d software to build, use Flash ActionScript as main interactive programming structure. I may also apply Photoshop and Illustrator to design some graphical or functional details.

mili's blog

2006-04-01T15:38:00.000-05:00

mili's blog

progress 8 - video

2006-03-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

Here are two video for the test pieces:
http://studentpages.scad.edu/~chwang24/videoabc.htm

progress 7 - prototype (2)

2006-03-14T05:40:00.000-05:00

Here is the main interface.

study(2) ActionScript~1

2006-03-13T19:55:00.000-05:00

The most difficult part of this project for me is programming, I should write the summary or note of what I studied about actionscript this quarter, so that when I need to apply some syntax, I can pick up some ideas from these. Professor Leong suggested me to read the the chapters: "Tile-Based Worlds" and "The Isometric Worldview" in the book "flash mx 2004 game design demystified". They are really helpful for my piece, because I am going to apply the view of 3d perspective in my project. I have a clearer concept of how to build my interface with perspective, and I also learned some knowledge of Array. I don't need to put everything on the stage instead of using variable to control those objects.

Such as a simple example to build a grid

var game:Object = new Object();
game.columns = 10; game.rows = 10;
game.spacing = 30; game.depth = 1000;
game.path = this.grid;
game.numberOfTypes = 8;

function buildGrid() {

for (var j:Number = 0; j
for (var i:Number = 0; i
var name:String = "cell"+i+"_"+j;
var x:Number = i*game.spacing;
var y:Number = j*game.spacing;
var type:Number = 1;
game.path.attachMovie("cell", name, ++game.depth);
game.path[name]._x = x;
game.path[name]._y = y;
game[name] = {x:i, y:j, name:name, type:type, clip:game.path[name]};
}
}
}
buildGrid();

I also learned a easy concept of how to create a tile in an isometric world: "you just use the Properties inspector to find the tile's width in the flash system, and then divide this number by the square root of 2 (approximately 1.414). you can just rotate the square 45 degree and scale down this square's height by 50 percent." source: page 237, "flash mx 2004 game design demystified".

progress 6 - prototype (1)

2006-03-09T14:09:00.000-05:00

I try to build my interface prototype by Illustrator. It is a rough version, I didn't put details of objects yet. I think there are also some problems of my persepective drawing and need to be fixed. I sort of hate drawing! >.<

progress 5 - development of practice section

2006-03-09T14:00:00.000-05:00

There are some games for practicing listening, pronunciation, vocabulary or others of each lesson, First I try to build is a kind of match game. Here is the sketch of the game's structure development.

progress 4 - script(1)

2006-03-09T13:36:00.000-05:00

I will accomplish one lesson for test by the end of this quarter. Here is my paper working progress. I add "Pinyin" under each word.

And here is the english transition:

David and Ivy go to restaurant for dinner.
David: Ivy, what would you like to eat? Please order yourself, ok?
Ivy: I am not picky. Go ahead and order.
David: I heard that the fish in this restaurant is prepared very well.
Ivy: Well then, let’s order a fish.
David: Sir, could you suggest a few dishes to us?
Waiter: Very well. Do you like spicy food? Our Spicy Tofu is very famous here.
David: If we order a fish, a vegetable dish, a Spicy Tofu and a chicken soup, will that be enough?
Ivy: Yes, that will be enough.

progress 3 - interface sketch

2006-03-09T13:30:00.000-05:00

About my interface, I will start to use Maya or 3d max to build. There are two very rough sketch of initial progress.

study (1) pinyin

2006-02-28T13:09:00.000-05:00

My native language is Chinese with traditional characters and phonetic symbols. Now I am learning Pinyin for this project. It is interesting because they are english letters but have chinese pronunciation. Sometimes I feel confused by very different pronunciations of a letter.

There are some special letters represent four tones of pronunction, I don't know why I can't find some of them in word. But there are all in this page. I will try to figure ito out.
(I found a good tool after I post this article. Here we are:http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/pinyin-editor.html)

The tone symbol representation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin, see "tones"

progress 2 - revise main structure

2006-02-28T12:23:00.000-05:00

No new update for two weeks.

During this time, my process focussed on interface sketch, prototype, actionscript study, pinyin study and chinese resource searching. I also revise main structure. I will post my sketch and rough comp later.

The conversation of each lesson won't base on the enviornment anymore, the enviornment graphic is just designed as an interface. Some conversation topic may be still relevant with the enviornment, but most are usual conversations. Therefore, the difficulty of lessons can be edit and designed coherently.

In single unit, Video and Conversation text are still the most important parts. But one thing I haven't decided yet is if I should put whole chinese text below the video, or make sentence by sentence in pinyin, Chinese and English and synchronize with video?

In word section, there will be more animations to introduce the development of a word. In vocabulary section, there will be the pronunciation, explanation and example sentence. Of course there will be pinyin and English of that vocabulary.

In some lessons, I will add the grammer or phrase sections. It will depend on the content of conversation.

There may be two or three different game to help students to practice what they learn in this lesson, such as match game, restructure sentences, shooting game or whacking game. Students can practice listening, recognizing characters, pronuncing, and how to complete a correct sentence.

I have new structure flowchart and will post it later.

Progress 1

2006-02-14T02:33:00.000-05:00

I outlined my content structure as a flowchart and brief description of the detail of each lesson.

I will use the conversation in different situations as the lesson distinction.

In Each Lesson, there will be:
1. Video
2. Conversation text (Chinese characters and pinyin)
3. word (生字)
4. vocabulary (生詞)
5. practice test (word and pinyin / to complete sentences / listening and recognizing )

Content research (9)

2006-02-14T02:03:00.000-05:00

Actually it is not about research, this is my homework. I am starting to work on actual design progress. I never learned pinyin before, but I will use this system to teach chinese, studying.......

GUI research (4)

2006-02-13T21:52:00.000-05:00

I found some 3d perspective drawings by colorpencil from the book "Le Fabuleux Album L' Amelie Poulain". They gave me some ideas of building my piece.

Content research (8) ~ interview - 3

2006-02-13T19:52:00.000-05:00

This Assistant Professor is teaching chinese in Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts more than 10 years. Here is the interview:

The teaching method in Williams College is very similar with Howard. They also use pinyin to help students pronounce, students learn traditional characters in first level, and then they can choose either traditional or simplified character to continue. But they are requested to recognize two characters. At the beginning, professors teach pinyin to let students start to get used of Chinese pronunciation. Then students learn listening, specking, writing and reading at the same time. In class process, professors teach conversations first, students read pinyin and listen Chinese pronunciation at same time, and then pick some words and vocabulary to teach how to write and speck. The homework is writing Chinese characters on the paper with grid. Professors asked some questions to students, when students answer, professors will correct their pronunciation and grammar. In this school, there are most Americans and some Asian students. The most difficult part for students are tones and characters. The grammar is also difficult for some students because there is not a very clear rule in Chinese grammar.

We also talked about the teaching materials selling in the market right now. As her experiences, there are quite a lot for beginners, she said if I want to publish my thesis or project, I may consider to design for intermediate or advanced level. Using video and real human voice will be more helpful for students. She also suggest that combining the study of listening, specking, reading and writing together for one situations conversation may be more effective, students also feel more interesting. Students can practice vocabulary, grammar and understand meanings from the conversations. She gave an important concept is: word and vocabulary in Chinese are different. There may be two or three words in a vocabulary, each word has its own meaning, but this vocabulary may has a very different meaning. I have to consider this point very careful when I design the learning content in my piece.

Content research (7) ~ interview - 2

2006-02-12T18:47:00.000-05:00

Here it is the secsond interview. She ever taught chinese when she took her master degree in New York.

1. How long have you taught Chinese?

I did Chinese teaching for about 4 month. I was teaching in Chinese school for elementary school students. Usually the classes are on Sunday, 3 hours a week.

2. What kind of students you ever taught or teach now? (age, career, nationality)

Our school is mainly for American born Chinese children and their parents are from Taiwan or Hong Kong. There are small amount of students are different races such as white Americans. The students are from 1st to 12th grade and I was taking care of 2ed grade like regular school.

3. Which learning system do you use? (Pinyin or traditional phonetic symbols)

Since most of the student’s parents are from Taiwan, the school tends to utilize traditional phonetic symbols as a teaching method. However, there are both systems in the text book and students prefer to read by pinyin.

4. What kind of characters do you teach? (Traditional or simplified)

The school is mainly for learning traditional Chinese.

5. What is your teaching process? Do you teach speaking or writing at the beginning?

We do both. Most of our children are able to understand or speak a little bit mandarin or Cantonese in the beginning. Therefore, the students are first asked to be able to understand and read out the text, and then do the further writing.

6. What is the difficult part when you teach?

The difficult part was the students were lacking of the desire of learning. Most of the students were coming here to response their parents’ request. In this situation, the teachers usually asked parents have to participate the children’s learning process. Since the students are still young and they might not recognize the importunacy of possess Chinese language skill, the pushing and support from parents is significant to the children.

Content research (6)

2006-02-09T04:25:00.000-05:00

I picked some specific tools or websites to start building my content structure.

matching of pinyin and characters (flash)
http://www.csulb.edu/web/labs/langlabs/builder/grab/chinese/pcr.html
http://www.csulb.edu/web/labs/langlabs/builder/table/chinese/pcr.html

Characters and pictures are presented and accompanied by a voice of a teacher
http://www.minmm.com/classroom/TOC.html

HANZI QUIZ (javascript)
http://www.abstractfactory.org/hanziquiz/hanziquiz_framed.html

The Chinese character and word learning system
there are a lot of interaces designed by flash, but it is for Cantonese

pinyin practice (flash)
http://www.pinyinpractice.com/

Chinese Pronunciation
http://www.newconceptmandarin.com/support/Intro_Pinyin.asp

Learn Chinese conversation
http://www.chinese-tools.com/learn/chinese
http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/Chinese/lessons.htm (video and text)

reading tools
http://www.adsotrans.com/news/

Content research (5) ~ speech recognition

2006-02-06T20:18:00.000-05:00

I am thinking add this function into my project, the list below is what I read in these few days, it is really difficult to access the technique part.

There is the definition of Speech recognition

And this is what I am reading: Voice Communication between Humans and Machines by Roe, David B. (I found this e-book on Jen Library website. Thanks god the search page is working again!) I just went through the Chapter of "SPEECH RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY". And I need more time to figure out. I start to reconsider if I can handle it in my project.

Content research (4) ~ interview -1

2006-02-05T22:07:00.000-05:00

I have been sent twenty something e-mails to Chinese instructors. After two-weeks waiting, I finally receive three replies but one had a car accident recently. I finished one interview and keep contacting the other instructor. People will go back to work tomorrow so that I think I might receive more feedback. (I hope so)

Here is the summary of the first interview:

This Professor is teaching Chinese as a Second Language in Harvard Chinese Language Program-Department of East Asian Languages & Civilizations. Female. Four years of teaching experience.

1. What kind of students you ever taught or teach now?
Ans: Students study in Harvard or M.I.T. Undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D.students. Most are Americans.

2. Which learning system do you use?
Ans: we use Hanyu_Pinyin to teach students.

3. What kind of characters do you teach?
Ans: We have four levels, students learn traditional characters in their first year, and then they can choose traditional or simplified characters to continue their study.

4. What is your teaching process?
Ans: we teach listening, speaking, reading and writing at the same time. We particularly focus on speaking training, teachers will ask questions by common words, then students have to answer questions and try to use correct grammar and sentence pattern. Students spend most time to practice speaking. And we use Radical System to teach characters. Teachers will explain the meaning of separate radicals; teach students how to use radicals to recognize characters.

5. What is the difficult part when you teach?
Ans: The four different tones and characters. Some teachers use a lot of graphics or telling a story to help students memorize Chinese characters, but these methods just apply to the basic level and sometimes it takes too much time. Before you design a teaching process, you have to think about how much time you will progress.

She also suggest me to do some research about a Professor of Chinese Linguistics at NTU, Wong Pui-Jung / huang peirong (different pinyin). He has his own Chinese characters theory. And she gave me a very useful website: Learning Chinese Online

GUI research (3)

2006-02-04T21:00:00.000-05:00

I found some learning language material interfaces which may help me to design my project, some of them look like old fashion. But the icons, symbols and navigations are nice.

CNN Interactive English
This interface is focused on interactive functions. There are also many videos from CNNnews or movies. Users can listen without or with texts, pick single sentence to listen, look for vocabulary meaning from dictionary, even have a test for users' study examination. There is a Speech Recognition tools for users to check their pronounciation. The navigation seen to confused me sometimes because of many symbol buttons and functions. I didn't like the graphic design of this project, not attracts me. I am doing some research about Speech Recognition, I might think about add this function into my project.

Studio Classroom
This is my favorite learning materical. They have different level products. Their interfaces designed for different audience. The products of studio classroom are more focus on infomation and regular english teaching. Users can listen daily program and read conent. There are only few simple interactive actions.

For beginners: http://www.studioclassroom.com.tw/home/h_products_lt.php
For intermediate level: http://www.studioclassroom.com.tw/home/h_products_sc.php
For advanced level: http://www.studioclassroom.com.tw/home/h_products_ad.php

Talk to me
http://www.ylib.com/hotsale/talktome/faq.htm
It is another learning English material. They also use speech recognition.

And there are some learning chinese material interfaces.
http://www.bestchinashop.com/learn_chinese/interactive_chinese.htm
http://www.interactivechinese.com/
http://www.ccdntech.com/success/success_03.htm

Most learning chinese programs are designed a typically traditional chinese style. They use calligraphy, chinese painting and specific culture objects. This a very important point, if the chinese style will raises users' studying interests? If the beginners such as high scholl students and teenagers like this kind of learning environment? I think there is another point coming up, what teenagers like? It will be another research summary.

Content research (4)

2006-01-31T12:15:00.000-05:00

some online tools of learning chinese

On-line Chinese Tools
Learning Chinese Online
zhongwen.com
chinese-tools.com

GUI research (2)

2006-01-31T02:14:00.000-05:00

I finished reading a book few days ago, and it is helpful for building my project. Interactivity by design : creating & communicating with new media by Ray Kristof & Amy Satran. You can find this book in Jen Library

There are three main part in this book, and they are also three step of designing a project. Information design – Interaction design – Presentation design.

Information design:
Before you design a project or product, you have to define your audience and environment, what is your users want? Research is the main work in this step. You start to plan, to list and to organize all data and information that you gather. Try to arrange your group data in to a structure. Then you can draw a flowchart to make your idea and process more clear; therefore, you may be able to outline a more specific and detailed schedule.

Interaction design:
When you have a completed process flowchart, now you can start on interactivity. Human centered issue is very important in this step. You have to consider about usability, it is not just a step of design but ongoing process, and try to not frustrate users. Make sure the function on the project or product is very clear and easy to find for users. How the navigation will be so that users can access any page and function they want without lost. I think clear image maps and metaphors are very important to navigation. On the other hand, testing is another significant method for a good interactive design. It will help designers to revise the project or product.

Presentation design:
In this step, you will focus on interface design. What is your prototype? How do the colors or images go on? What kind of panels will be design? What text, video, sound will be included? How buttons and other controls look like? I think we learn a lot about these from our studio classes.

Content research (3)

2006-01-31T01:27:00.000-05:00

I found an article that a teacher shares his experience of teaching chinese from DUOWEINEWS.COM. I used a plug-in software for WORD to translate into english. But it really sucks. Correcting "some grammers and vocabulary" took me two days. Please tolerate the poor grammer and feel free to ask me questions if you really can't get the point.

In a meeting held recently by the bureau of education of New Jersey, Princeton University country, education expert and entrepreneurs are devoted to promoting and implementing “the international educational five-year-plan" in the schools at all levels of U.S.A. together. The initial stage of this plan goal is recommending diverse cultural education, raising American students' foreign language ability, its final purpose, will train them to be - really having the ability to globalize international talents who survived and worked in the world. The issue of this plan, has reflected a new round of rise that " new trend of foreign language " of American education circle, and as the opening of the Chinese market, with developing rapidly, more and more people want to study Chinese.

Located in the center of New Jersey, it is a private Catholicism university for Peter institute that the ones that face each other with Manhattan across the river, the total amount of students is about more than 4,000 people. The school sizes up the situation, determine to set up Chinese elective course in the modern classical department of literature of language. And I, because of the good luck coincidence, have a chance to become the teacher who teaches this subject.

In teaching a language, there are listening, speaking, reading and writing four basic skills. But at the beginning, the contradiction conflicting is difficult to avoid among pronunciation, Chinese characters and conversation teaching. For example, “classmates, good morning such as Zhyuan!" From the point of view of conversation, should by basic teach, but involve sentence by phonemes, such as " T , X , M , Z , SH , ong , ue , en , ang ",etc., among teaching on it is at pronunciation order must by advanced teach, It will become to complex to teach conversation and Chinese characters at the same time. So the language educationist having it (such as Everson , M.E. 1998 ) proposes, non-native Chinese speakers should study spelling pinyin in primary stage , listening and speaking. It is better to learn how to read, write Chinese characters one quarter or one year later.

I originally think this kind of method is quite reasonable, so choose the material "contemporary Chinese" which selected by national foreign Chinese office of China to teach. The design of primary stage of this teaching material is influenced by Everson theory very obviously. At the beginning of twenty more basic classes, there are no Chinese characters at all in the text, all pinyin. I explain the cooperation relation between the characteristic of the syllable structure of Chinese andinitial consonant simple or compound vowel of a Chinese syllable according to the progress of the text, lead students to repeat the scene conversation with simple text, require them to open one's mouth and imitate the exercise constantly, I plan to add other content of courses progressively, such as Chinese characters and grammar sentence structure, etc after student are familiar with pinyin and perceptual knowledge about the language.

But passed for two or three weeks, my students begin to complain depressedly , it is really very difficult to learn Chinese, Pinyin is too uninteresting, and they can't remember at all. Several students told me directly that pinyin is very useless, query why I teach them how to use Pinyin. Their mood has caused my vigilance. Students' study enthusiasm and initiative is the most valuable factor of their effective learning. These students are specialized and in the majority in order to study history and commercial affair, perhaps there is not a very clear study goal, but they very curious to Chinese, hope they can grasp this skill with very much stronger desires. As the teacher, if I neglect this kind of their psychology, it will undoubtedly weaken even attack their enthusiasm. “Whether Pinyin is useful or not, to Chinese, what is you are most interested in?” I ask them. their answers is learning Chinese character. This makes me remember that Australian Ministry of Education is in their "course policy of national Chinese" ( 1994) Point out: "Chinese character is the most interesting thing when non-Chinese speaker students learn Chinese", remember their suggestion too: "The earlier Chinese character start to be taught, the more favorably to studying, the difficulty of writing should not be considered as obstruction."

Basically, agreeing to Everson for theory is start from my intuition. I think that ask students to imitate repeatedly by Pinyin, take the basic teaching based on listening and speaking, is very similar to the process of baby's learning, it should be the best way to study language. Nowadays the fact indicates that my such intuition proceed from the aspect of "teaching" is wrong, because it means not consider the target students. In other words, I have neglected the concrete conditions of these students. In the sixties of the 20th century, cognitive psychology is a process of the view in foundational information with the methods of simulation, proving, etc., it is a course of information processing to work out people's cognitive course, and sum up this course into four kinds of systematic ways, namely perceive system , memory system, control system and response system , thus have a great impact on educational psychology and teaching theory. Cognitive psychology thinks , " base mould " (Schema ) is a cognitive foundation. The so-called " base mould ", stored in the brain by people, abstract knowledge units that come from their past experience , the scene or the object are exchanged , play a decisive role to their present behavior (McNeil , 1984 ). The person growing up under different culture background and life state will demonstrate different behaviors, because each passing experience is different, namely "base mould " is different. The base mould is divided into a lot categories, there are base mould of scenes, behavior base model, goal base model and base moulds of language learning. The older people are, the more regular the contents of all kinds of base moulds become.

In the function of analogizing of the base mould of the behavior, base mould of language learning is what student got used to learn the literal psychological course that leads to meaning of word. These adult students of mine whose language base mould is characters English 26 letter and order of arranging, spelling rule. As they begin to learn Chinese, physique of Chinese character mould is far from each other with base of memory obviously, but spelling is continuing to use " letter arrange the order ", take their cognition back to to the pronunciation rule and standard of the mother tongue . Though Chinese Pinyin used a large number symbols are similar to English letters, the rule of the pinyin was made according to the pronunciation principle of Russian, and a lot of tone of word of Chinese characters, does not exist no matter in Russian or English, the pronunciation and English of representatives of letters, such as " C , Q , X , Z " ,etc. are totally different even more. The base mould presents the enormous breach here, cause students' pronunciation of interfere learning, make them puzzled. In addition, they study Chinese in U.S.A., have no assisting environment of languages, then learning process is turned into memorized mechanically, very passive. In other words, since beginning, they need to set up the new Chinese language base mould. In order to " set up new language base mould ", some foreign Chinese teaching materials jumped over the pinyin to learning characters directly, and wait for students' words accumulate to certain extent , then begin to channel into the pinyin. This kind of teaching method has undoubtedly moved towards another extreme. Because studying pinyin is the important beginning in Chinese after all, it is the essential tool of pronounce and study in the future. Take or omit the content of this a part easily, it means that they will lose the training chance that students may have the ability independently reading from the beginning.

In fact, , a school where Metropolitan Adelaide in South Australia had ever done an experiment for this specially in 2001. They divide 102 students without Chinese background into class A , second class (experiment group ) and third class , forth class (contrast group ), the content of learning Chinese is exactly same, but the teacher's methods of teaching are different: The word cards used by contrasts group are including a picture in one side, another side is Chinese characters of pinyin on the note, students study and read to write it with the pinyin before learning characters; The word cards used by experiment group, picture and Chinese character, another side is pinyin of Chinese character, students learn Chinese characters before reading and writing pinyin. Passed the study of two terms, the experiment group made four tests of listening, speaking, reading and writing in unison to the students of 4 classes. The results which they get is benefited very much for English speakers, one of them is: "Study Chinese characters and has not increased the difficulty of studying Chinese. The complicatedness of the structure of Chinese characters does not form the main obstacle in their learning process. " ( Hu Shiqin, 2003) then, I think I must let the students realize the necessity to study pinyin at first. I find some articles about China's history, culture introductions by English for them to read, all nouns mentioned in these articles is noted by pinyin. Students realize pinyin is not " useless " , but " very useful ".

And then I change single pinyin teaching into the pronunciation , Chinese character , conversation go on together. Three respects are all relatively independent, but there is mutual crossing. Simple Chinese characters appearing in this stage for pinyin, does not require students to write , just let them regard Chinese character of the level as the figures , according to these figures that read pinyin, through pinyin to familiar with structure of syllable , thus know initial consonant and cooperation relation of simple or compound vowel of the rule of Chinese syllable and pinyin. It is more interesting than repeating pinyin as simple machinery, and they can remember firmer.

But the new problem comes after another again: The Chinese character made up of stroke and part, the structure is complicated, one more or lack one will become the mispronounced character. Remembering the physique of Chinese characters accurately is not an easy thing too. It is only far from being enough according to the interest. So I teach simple single characters , such as " the horse 馬 , large 大, clothing 衣" ,etc. according to pinyin, introduce "pictograph 象形" and "demonstration 指事" two making word method to students , and categorize these characters as much as possible according to making word method. Then with the deepening of pinyin teaching, the words amount are expanded progressively, speak " understanding 會意" and " ideophone 形聲" on the basis of structure of Chinese characters, explain " metaideophone 轉注" and " make use of 假借" on the basis of the thing that Chinese characters are used. I believe that making Chinese character as figure , image and story can desalinize Chinese characters arbitrary decision nature on the style of strokes on the surface, make study of Chinese character become more and more simple and easy and imbued with logical, it is convenient for student to combine shape , meaning and pronounce. At this time I often write several basic parts within the teaching material at random in the classroom too, but a word that students have never learned before, encourage them to guess the pronunciation and meaning of these words. The pronunciation that lets they guess and write them down, and correct them by each other. At last, looking for a correct word from dictionary each time always makes students are all terribly excited, because they can draw inferences about other cases from one instance , can study in order to practice , they have seen one's own achievement that make great efforts really, feel it in the face of known as " one of the involved Asian languages " ( Kirkpatrick, 1995) “I am a victor” ,the interest of the study and confidence strengthen greatly. There is another benefit of the beginning of teaching Chinese characters, especially teach the structure unit of Chinese characters and structure relation, is making the students not be confused to meet the unknown word later. Actually there were different justice words in Chinese characters, students still can’t pronounce the four tone very accurately, the original ranges of these words have been expanded greatly even more. And the effective way to distinguish the different characters with same pronunciation is no more than knowing Chinese character itself. In a word, the beginning of learning pinyin and Chinese characters in Chinese is to complement each other in the ground, just choosing either one is totally unfavorable to student's studying without Chinese language background to accumulate knowledge.

List of references: Everson, M. E. (1998)Word recognition among learners of Chinese as a foreign language: Investigating the relationship between naming and knowing. The Modern Language Journal, 82, 194-204 Kirkpatrick, A. (1995)Learning Asian languages in Australia: Which languages and when is Babel, 30 (1), 4-11, 26-29 ¡¡Department of Education (1994)National Curriculum Guidelines of Chinese. Department of School Education, Victoria, Australia. Hu Shiqin (2003)Teaching Chinese to English Background Primary School Students. International Education Journal Vol 4, No.1 Schank, R. C. & Abelson, R. (1997)Scripts, plans, goals and understanding. Hilside, NJ: Erlbaum

Content research (2)

2006-01-30T23:52:00.000-05:00

Although I didn’t get any reply from those teachers I found on the web of Language-School-Teachers, I don’t know why, I thought it is very easy to interview a teacher with experience that I need. My mom said maybe they are afraid that my design might cause their unemployment, of course just kidding. Fortunately, My younger sister told me her best friend in high school ever taught Chinese when she studied MBA in New York. I sent a informal survey with some questions and waiting for her reply. I think I might pick wrong time because this week is a long break for Chinese New Year that might be the reason why I can’t contact any one in some learning language institutes listed below:
Tunghai University The Chinese Language Center
Chinese Culture University Mandarin Learning Center
National Taiwan Normal University Mandarin Training Center

Harvard Chinese Language Program
USC Chinese Language Program
Chinese Language Teachers Association
Chinese Programs at IU
William College Department of Asian Studies

there is my servey content:
1. How long have you taught Chinese?
2. What kind of students you ever taught? (age, career, nationality)
3. Which learning system do you use? (pinyin or traditional phonetic symbols)
4. Which character do you teach? (traditional or simplified)
5. Do you teach speaking or writing at the beginning?
6. What is the difficult part when you teach?
7. How is the efficacy of students' study?

I am keeping to e-mail other teachers found online as many as possible, I don't think if there is only one persona enough for my thesis. Hope I can get more replies when everyone go back to work next week.

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone ^_^

some entries you can search websites

2006-01-26T12:14:00.000-05:00

http://www.coolhomepages.com/
http://www.coolwebsites.dk/
http://www.thebestdesigns.com/
http://www.thefwa.com/

Content research (1)

2006-01-23T23:11:00.000-05:00

I didn't get any respond yet from my friends, but I found some learning chinese institute or websites online. I try to e-mail to "China Institute". I also pick three teachers from "Language-School-Teachers" and e-mail them. The only thing I can do now is waiting for reply. "Language-School-Teachers" is a website built for who want to find a foreign languague qualified teacher, totur or language school, or who want to find students to teach. I registered so that I can get those teachers' e-mail. (actually through its e-mail system) Hope someone is willing to do this interview with me.

GUI research (1)

2006-01-22T20:06:00.000-05:00

I am kind of get stuck to find some teachers who teach English speakers Chinese. I asked all my friends not only in Taiwan but different states in US. All I can do is waiting the feedback. I am also search online, and there are some institutes offering Chinese classes. I am gonna e-mail them after this posting and I might be lucky to get some responds later. At the same time, I start to think about what kind of interface is more appropriate for this subject. I really like 3D perspective vision. But I am not sure if I have to learn any 3D modeling skill? If I drawing the vector illustration or incorporate the style of simulation. ( I am not sure if I use right term, it is kind of put some footages such as a person’s talk or object images on the interface.)
There are some examples I really like:
http://www.agencynet.com/
http://www.loworks.org/
http://www.md-extreme.pl/
http://rm.images.at/flash/
http://www.stephaneguillot.com/index_uk.htm
http://www.murakamifarm.com/

Or just use 2D interface:
http://www.saltedherring.com/
http://www.lowmorale.co.uk/

images scanned from "The complete guide to digital illustration / Steve Caplin and Adam Banks ; consultant editor, Nigel Holmes." by Caplin, Steve.

The structure of research

2006-01-22T18:49:00.000-05:00

After doing some rough research and talking with Professor, now I got a sketch of my research about the thesis process. There are three parts what I am working now. First is about some usability theory, include interface, psychology….and so on. They will help me to design a friendlier user interface, and how to test and revise it effectively. Second is the research of content. I have to decide which Chinese learning system should be used. Pinyin or Chinese Phonetic Symbols? Professor suggests me to find some teachers who teach English speakers Chinese, and do some interviews or surveys, so that I can deduce and conclude a more persuasive learning system. The third part is graphic detail. There is a short article I read in this week "Balancing fidelity in prototyping". it is really helpful to consider what prototype I will create in my thesis project? I am thinking how to make the visual design interesting and attractive. What kind of style such as Pixel art? 2D illustration? Or Isometric 3D perspective? What kind of technique problem I will face? In the closing of this quarter, I will start to work on programming research and process and continue in Studio 2.

thesis proposal (first draft)

2006-01-19T00:22:00.000-05:00

1. Overview / Executive Summary
In US, there are more and more people studying Chinese in these recent few years because of the fast development of China. Speaking Chinese is not the difficult part, students just need to figure out how are different among four tones. But writing Chinese well is not as easy as speaking, there are thousands of characters and quite difficult to explain by one rule. I will try to create a more interesting learning interface with colorful graphics and interactive functions to help Chinese beginners.

2. Demographics / Audience
The audience I set is those never learned about Chinese before especially for high school students would study Chinese as a second language.

3. Story / History / Background
I spent whole winter break at home in Taiwan. I read a lot of Chinese newspapers and got some ideas about my thesis. There are many articles and columns talking about how does Chinese language become a new world trend and how many people are learning Chinese now. One article I read is even mentioned about some high schools in US may set Chinese as a second language. I am thinking that since Mandarin is my native language, interaction is what I am learning in my major, why I don’t try to design a interface for those people want to learn Chinese? After I had an informal interview with my ESL professor, I am more surely to work on this subject. He told me about his studying experiences and what he thinks is necessary factor but he never experienced before. The present teaching materials for nonnative Chinese speakers are more focus on memorizing. How to make a learning Chinese become more interesting, attractive and effective is what I am going to do in my theses project.

4. Mechanics
My project design will based on technique of Flash. All interactive functions in this project will be controlled by Actionscript. I will also use the software of Photoshop and Illustrator to create images and interface.

5. Schedule for Development
Class 4 January 17, Tue concept research (setting audience)

Class 5 January 19, Thu concept research (e-learning interface examples)

Class 6 January 24, Tue content research (Chinese learning system ; try to find a teacher who teaches english speakers chinese)

Class 7 January 26, Thu content research (decide which system to be used and rough content structure)

Class 8 January 31, Tue technical research (programming)

Class 9 February 2, Thu technical research (project rough structure)

Class 10 February 7, Tue Interface Sketch and keep researching (programming)

Class 11 February 9, Thu Interface Sketch and keep researching(programming)

Class 12 February 14, Tue Interface Sketch and keep researching (programming)

Class 13 February 16, Thu Revising

Class 14 February 21, Tue GUI comp and programming

Class 15 February 23, Thu GUI comp and programming

Class 16 February 28, Tue GUI comp and programming

Class 17 March 2, Thu Testing and Revising

Class 18 March 7, Tue Testing and Revising

Class 19 March 9, Thu Accomplish whole research paper

Class 20 March 14, Tue Project process review

summary of books

2006-01-17T10:33:00.000-05:00

In Noman's The Design of Everyday Things, the first thing I learned is usability. It is the most important factor in interactive design. There are thousands of daily things around us within this issue. But why users keep to be frustrated by designer again and again? People don’t think too much when they purchase a product; the desirable feature often becomes a main reason during choosing products. Are designers innocent or intentional? They want to design aesthetic interface but some common functional factors might be invisible. Noman mentioned some principles about good interactive interface design: Following affordances, providing a good conceptual model, having a understandable and natural mapping.

In Cooper's About Face, he talked about three different models of interface design. One is Implementation Model. This is a method what engineers do actually and how a device work. Mental Model is the ideal interface that users can operate without frustration. Users don’t need to know how the programming progresses behind the interface, they just want to operate the functional buttons or knob and receive the feedback. Therefore, the model that designers create and develop, what users can approach in daily life, is named Manifest Model. The better design is as close as mental model.

But, how to incorporate the desirable feature and friendly usability in a design at the same time is really a big question that difficult to answer.

articles marking

2006-01-17T07:33:00.000-05:00

Some articles about learning chinese in US

More students in U.S. learning Chinese

How hard is it to learn Chinese?

Niswonger Foundation May Fund Class In Chinese At GHS That Would Go Electronically To Other Schools

Tech fosters Chinese language learning in U.S. schools

School Board Adds Mandarin Program To Budget

http://people.w3.org/rishida/scripts/chinese/

Real Chinese

Pinyin

ChinaSprout

winter schedule

2006-01-17T07:16:00.000-05:00

Class 4	January 17, Tue	concept research (setting audience)
Class 5	January 19, Thu	concept research (e-learning interface examples)
Class 6	January 24, Tue	content research (Chinese learning system)
Class 7	January 26, Thu	content research (decide which system to be used and rough content structure)
Class 8	January 31, Tue	technical research (programming)
Class 9	February 2, Thu	technical research (project rough structure)
Class 10	February 7, Tue	Interface Sketch and keep researching (programming)
Class 11	February 9, Thu	Interface Sketch and keep researching(programming)
Class 12	February 14, Tue	Interface Sketch and keep researching (programming)
Class 13	February 16, Thu	Revising
Class 14	February 21, Tue	GUI comp and programming
Class 15	February 23, Thu	GUI comp and programming
Class 16	February 28, Tue	GUI comp and programming
Class 17	March 2, Thu	Testing and Revising
Class 18	March 7, Tue	Testing and Revising
Class 19	March 9, Thu	Accomplish whole research paper
Class 20	March 14, Tue	Project process review

weekly working process: the usability of interface

2006-01-14T14:01:00.000-05:00

In this week, I worked most on the human interactive interface issues, especially on usability. It is very hard to incorporate perfect usability and elegant aesthetic in one piece at the same time.

there are some books and articles I read. I will write more summaries seperately later.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html

The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman

About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design by Alan Cooper

3D User Interfaces by Doug A. Bowman ... [et al.]

interview with ESL professor

2006-01-10T10:01:00.000-05:00

I had a informal interview with one of my ESL professors, Brantley Moate. He have ever been Taiwan for seven years, so he has some experiences about learning Chinese. He told me, he learned Chinese phonetic symbols such as ㄅㄆㄇㄈ instead of Pinyin. Because it can help students pronounce correct tone of a word. In Chinese, there are four tones when we speak, not in English. Therefore, pronouncing correct tone becomes a difficult part for English speakers. It is about the relationship of ㄅㄆㄇㄈand Pinyin: http://www.cnpedia.com/pages/knowledge/baserule.htm

Another problem comes up when I was interviewing, it is which Chinese character I should use? Professor gave me some websites talking about Chinese characters, and there are showing Traditional characters and Simplified characters. In china, they use Simplified characters and we use Traditional characters in Taiwan. I am not sure if those American high schools will choose Traditional or Simplified characters as the teaching of second language. I will figure it out! This is the website professor gave me: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/chinese.htm

In Professor Moate’s experience, he learned how to speak at the beginning, then learned how to write and use grammar. (I almost forget there is also grammar in Chinese.) He said he always has to memorize those Chinese characters repeatedly. But they didn’t have a lot of chance to execute communicative approach. As Professor Leong mentioned at last class, I may be able to design a simple chat room for those students so that they have more chance to practice with native Chinese speakers. Professor Moate also talk about typing Chinese on computer is perhaps another effective way to help students improve their studies.

After this interview, I think I still need to work on how to narrow it and decide which system I will use.

There are some websites professor gave me:

Learn Chinese characters ~ http://zhongwen.com/
A guide to written language ~ http://www.omniglot.com/
Yellow Bridge ~ http://www.yellowbridge.com/

Origin

2006-01-10T09:11:00.000-05:00

I read a lot of newspapers when I spent winter break in Taiwan. I found that learning Chinese language is becoming a new trend now. Some high schools in America even consider setting Chinese as a second language. It gave me an idea of my project. For me, Chinese is my native language, so I think I can utilize what I am familiar with to progress my project. That is why I choose this as my subject.