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RESEARCH, INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO
OPEN source software developed at the University
of Waikato is helping teachers and students in China
and Timor Leste learn English. FLAX – Flexible
Language Acquistion – has been developed by the
Digital Libraries Group at the University of Waikato
and allows language teachers to create a variety of
practice exercises from ‘real’ language texts and
multimedia available in digital libraries.
And now a series of language learning videos
in English and Chinese have been launched onto
YouTube and the Chinese video-hosting service Youku.
The short (3-4 minute) videos cover useful topics
for language learners, including correcting “Chinese
English” expressions, and exercises in building phrases,
scrambled sentences and paragraphs, split sentences,
word guessing and completing collocations.
The project with China is what’s known as a
“three brothers programme” – or more correctly the
New Zealand–China Tripartite Fund – set up by both
governments to encourage the development of strategic
research relationships between New Zealand and China.
Waikato University is the overseas brother, whose
researchers are working with colleagues at Fudan
University in Shanghai (big brother), and the more
remote and smaller Yunnan University (little brother)
in China’s less developed West.
FLAX is supported by the open-source software
tool Greenstone and allows language teachers to create
structured practice exercises from ‘real’ language texts
and multimedia available through digital libraries.
Greenstone is used by the United Nations and,
because it’s also available in CD form, in developing
countries around the world.
“The beauty of this sort of language learning is
that digital libraries can access large volumes of high
quality text,” says computer scientist Professor Ian
Witten from Waikato University’s Digital Library
Group. “It can be used in conjunction with Moodle
[internet based system for delivering e-Learning
programs]or stand alone.”
Professor Witten’s been working with Dr Shaoqun
Wu on the Chinese project. “It’s not without issues,”
says Dr Wu. “Computer assisted language learning
[CALL] is not commonplace yet, so we need to work
hard to get people used to the idea and show them
how the technology can help them in their teaching.
What’s also good is that we’re slowly building more
research oriented links with the Computer Science
Department at Fudan.”
ESOL teacher Jenny Field completed her Master
of Philosophy at Waikato University in 2012. After
being introduced to FLAX by Professor Witten and
Dr Wu, Mrs Field conducted a case study to find
out how teachers at the national university in Timor
Leste became normalised to CALL. Mrs Field’s been
a regular visitor to Timor Leste since 2005 and says
that currently FLAX language learning is presented
as an option among computer assisted language
learning programs at the university.
“Massive change has taken place in Timor Leste.
When I first went CALL was a mystery, but since
then donor countries such as Portugal and Australia
have poured resources into the country and university
– so they’ve now got a well-appointed library and
computer room at the national university. The whole
situation has turned around. There are still power
cuts, but when I was up there working last year
I re-introduced FLAX as a learning tool because it
really is a useful application for early students who
have a lot of work to do to get their language up to
mainstream academic English.”
In Hamilton, Mrs Field has introduced FLAX
to her English language learners at the Waikato
Institute of Technology (Wintec) where she works
and says they’re finding it helpful.
Meanwhile, back at the university, Professor
Witten says they’re working on expanding FLAX.
“We’re broadening the system by creating new
activity types, and we’re writing a new edition of a
book we call the Book of FLAX that describes the
system and all the activities. We’re also developing
resources and tools to support students, particularly
in the area of academic writing.”
Ihw@waikato.ac.nz
PROFESSOR
IANWITTEN:
“The beauty
of this sort of
language learning
is that digital
libraries can access
large volumes of
high quality text.”
Weaving FLAX into China and Timor Leste
WHAT started as a small computer program
to get his brother learning programming has
turned into an international hit for University
of Waikato PhD student Michael Walmsley.
Michael designed a site that taught
Javascript and web development skills and
covered requirements for the new NCEA Level 1
programming achievement standard.
It proved a hit and in the last six months
he’s launched Level 2 programming and web
development courses, which are aligned to the
NCEA Level 2 achievement standards, and in
August this year he’ll release his Level 3 web
development program, and a Level 3 programming
course will follow in February 2014.
During the summer, Michael ran day-long
professional development workshops for high
school digital technologies teachers in the five
main centres to train them in HTML5/CSS3 and
JavaScript programming and since then more
than 100 New Zealand high schools have signed
on to use CodeAvengers in the classroom.
In addition to the local schools, more
than 400 international schools have also tried
CodeAvengers mostly in the US and UK.
Scotland introduces a new computer science
curriculum in August 2013 and they too will be
using CodeAvengers in schools. “Jeremy Scott
of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland’s
National Academy was commissioned by the
government to develop resources to support
the new curriculum,” says Michael. “Given the
abundance of freely available HTML and CSS
resources on the web he decided to base his web
resource around an existing course. He opted
to use CodeAvengers over resources from some
pretty big well-funded companies because, as he
said, ‘CodeAvengers is clearly created with the
needs of teachers and students in mind’.”
In July this year, Michael will travel to
Los Angeles to run a CodeCamp there for keen
student learners and is starting to organise
camps in Australia for 2014. In New Zealand,
he’s already run three, three-day camps all
hosted in conjunction with the University of
Waikato. “About 150 secondary school students
have participated so far and I’ve got plans
for more camps in November, December and
next January.”
mrwwalmsley@gmail.com
www.codeavengers.com
MICHAELWALMSLEY: Taking
CodeAvengers to the world.
CodeAvengers getting good pick up home and abroad