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EACL 1999 Workshop
Contents
ELSNET co-organized with Mike Rosner (University of Malta) a
workshop on Computer and Internet Supported Education in Language
and Speech Technology at EACL 1999 in Bergen, Norway.
The idea for organizing a workshop on this topic was motivated by
positive experiences with the Socrates Thematic Network for Speech
Communication Sciences.
Our field is such that curricula have always been closely related
to computational theories and related tools. However, the tools that
are available are often no more than unrefined versions of programs
developed in research laboratories that authors have generously made
available to the public.
Consequently, the relationship between available tools and
the goals of Education in Language and Speech Technology
(ELST) is, more often than not, a casual one that individual
course designers may seek to strengthen by, for example,
adapting the functionality of the tools themelves, the user
interface, the context in which they are presented, etc. In
other cases, computatational tools are specially developed to
suit the needs of particular courses. Given the number of
courses in existence whose aims are basically rather similar,
it is reasonable to suppose that a lot of work is being
unnecessarily repeated.
One of the concrete objectives of this workshop is to
establish a registry of computational tools that are
currently being used to support ELST. A related aim, is to
consider whether it is feasible or desirable to adopt common
approaches to the development of tools and environments
specifically designed with educational goals in mind.
No such discussion can be seriously entertained without
also considering the role of internet which gives us the
means to deliver course components, if not complete courses,
at a distance. The advantages of internet delivery in general
are obvious: practically limitless multimedia resources,
asynchronous patterns of connection, access to world
expertise, flexible styles of interaction ranging from
student-centered, resource-oriented teaching to interactive
virtual classroom discussions and demonstrations -- and more.
Far less clear, and far less considered, are:
- the particular areas of ELST where internet delivery is
likely to have significant advantages over other
computer-based delivery media such as CD ROM.
- the
special nature of course materials/authorware that are
available or that need to be developed to support
internetbased distance learning in the area of language and
speech technology.
It came as no surprise that submitted papers did not fall
into crisply defined categeories. Therefore, for the purposes
of the workshop programme, papers to be presented have been
fairly coursely sorted into three categories, each of which
forms the title of a session. These are: tools (which comes
after the keynote), courses, and environments. Tools have
limited but well defined functionality and are typically
portable: they can be used in a variety of contexts. Courses
are altogether larger and less portable, but provide a
coherent and temporally extended pedagogical experience to
the learner. Environments are essentially a collection of
support facilities that may well come into existence before
the exact nature of the contents is known. The main idea here
is to stimulate the development and evolution of such
contents -- which might well take the form of tools and
courses. The workshop offers a forum -- albeit a brief one --
for the presentation and discussion of the above issues and
other related ones.
A medium/long term aim of this initiative is the
establishment of a more permanent framework (e.g. a special
interest group under the auspices of the learned associations
and/or ELSNET) within which the educational issues in our
field could be given the time and attention they deserve. I
would like to express my sincere thanks to ELSNET, who have
kindly sponsored our keynote speaker, to the programme
committee and to the authors for making this event possible.
The programme committe for this workshop consisted of:
Michael Rosner, University of Malta, email: mros@cs.um.edu.mt (coordinator)
Doug Arnold, University of Essex, UK
Gerrit Bloothooft, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Chris Bowerman, University of Sunderland
Anders Erikkson, Umea University, Sweden
Steven Krauwer, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Mark Huckvale, University College of London, UK
Fabio Pianesi, ITC-IRST, Trento, Italy
Koenraad de Smedt, University of Bergen, Norway
Mark Tatham, University of Essex, UK
Maria Wolters, University of Bonn, Germany
Felisa Verdejo, Spanish Open University, Madrid, Spain
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