Education/Projects/JetpackForLearning/Profiles/ClozeFox: Difference between revisions

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 == Progress Reports ==
 Progress reports are available [http://ileriseviye.org/blog/?tag=jet4learning here].
+== Background and rationale ==
+Since the early eighties, computers have been used extensively to offer a wide variety of exercises to language learners and teachers worldwide (see the [http://www.eurocall-languages.org/resources/history_of_call.pdf History of CALL]). Early MS-DOS programs started to appear in USA, UK and even in Belgium: Verbapuces, Vocapuces and Texta by DIDASCALIA (Jozef Colpaert & Wilfried Decoo, University of Antwerp, Belgium), and Adam and Eve (University of Leuven, Belgium). They offered the most advanced functionalities, rarely equaled or surpassed by contemporary web applications (see Colpaert 2004).
+One of the most frequent exercise types has always been the cloze-exercise. A cloze exercise is a type of fill-in exercise which requires "the ability to understand context and vocabulary in order to identify the correct words or type of words that belong in the deleted passages of a text" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloze_test Wikipedia]). Scientific literature from the eighties on (Bachman, Alderson, Bormuth, ...) quickly indicated some limitations of this activity type for accurate measuring in language testing, but it has been used very intensively ever since in learning systems and environments (Moodle, Dokeos, Blackboard, Hot Potatoes, Question Mark, ...). It is interesting to see that two Flemish universities have even developed their own interfaces for content authoring in learning environments: Entreposage Universel for Blackboard (Jozef Colpaert, University of Antwerp) and Curios for Dokeos (Ghent University).
+Where initially language courseware (dedicated, meaning designed for language learning, teaching and testing) was the most successful application type, gradually tools (non-dedicated) have been taking over the leading position, both in terms of use as in terms of research and publications. An easy explanation of this phenomenon might be the impact of Web 2.0, but a more serious analysis reveals two important factors: the labor-intensiveness of content development and the labor-intensiveness of software development (Colpaert 2004).
+The close exercise type remains a widely demanded, meaningful, useful and effective activity type. The impact of its deployment depends on the extent to which we can reduce the cost of content authoring (by reusing existing material, making it more generic and exchangeable, by researching new ways of generating content and questions from authentic materials in a computer assisted way, ...), and the cost of software development (by using appropriate design models, by reusing existing components and expertise, by working in open source, ...).
 == Operation and Implementation Details ==