Title:	AWLA LANGUAGE TOOLS: INTEGRATION AND HYPERTEXTUALITY IN A UBIQUITOUS COLLABORATIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Author(s):	Manuel Ortega , Pedro P. Sanchez-villalon
ISBN:	972-8924-15-1
Editors:	Pedro Isaías, Piet Kommers and Inmaculada Arnedillo Sánchez
Year:	2006
Edition:	Single
Keywords:	mLearning, ubiquitous computing, collaborative writing, language learning, dictionaries.
Type:	Full Paper
First Page:	260
Last Page:	264
Language:	English
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Full Contents:	click to dowload
Paper Abstract:	AWLA is an e-Learning system for writing texts in a foreign language in an online synchronous and asynchronous collaborative learning environment. Apart from a communication tool consisting of a chat facility to negotiate collaboration and to communicate with the teacher, it integrates a set of language tools to help the students write naturally in a collaborative way, as it is usual in the real world when writing formally. This system is developed upon the ubiquitous computing paradigm, with computational devices pervading over the physical classroom environment: the students use their mobile electronic notebooks (laptops, PDAs or TabletPCs); they frequently direct their attention to the interactive electronic whiteboard, where they can have a wider vision of the writing process being carried out; they are all interconnected via a wireless network to the Internet. The language tools for English are based on an electronic dictionary that consists of a lexicogrammatical knowledge base of the English language. It is easily accessible to average users, regarding accessibility in the sense of availability and integration. It provides lexical information at all stages in the writing process, from the brainstorming phase to the final draft phase. Grammatical analysis is also provided at a basic level. A Lexicon has been deployed from the lexicogrammatical base. The content or lexical categories are defined and the content words included in the definitions are hyperlinked to their corresponding keywords in the dictionary as associations which the user can navigate, following the hypertextual conceptual connection of human mind. The system makes these tools permanently accessible to the students interconnected to the eLearning environment through wireless and mobile technologies, which further contributes to AWLA pervasive feature. Finally, the system includes a tracking mechanism, so that the teacher assesses the students’ progress and participation in the writing activity.
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