広島大学大学院総合科学研究科紀要. I, 人間科学研究 Volume 4
published_at 2009-12-31

語学授業のためのモバイル・サーバの開発 <論文>

The Development of Mobile Server for Language Courses <Articles>
Tokumoto Hiroko
fulltext
11.9 MB
StudiesInHumanSciences_4_49.pdf
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to introduce the conceptual design of the mobile server software "MY Server" for language teaching drafted by Tokumoto. It is to report how this software is designed and adopted effectively to Japanese language teaching.

Most of the current server systems for education require facilities in a big scale including high-spec server machines, professional administrators, which naturally result in big budget projects that individual teachers or small size schools cannot afford. This MOBILE server software, "MY Server" is all written in Prolog and compiled to executable programs that can work on the Web. It is so compact and lightweight that it can be installed on a home PC. Most server programs are so complicated to use for language teachers but this software does not require any professional knowledge to use. Teachers can install the software on their laptop computers without any help and bring them even to a classroom.

The software administers testing and its automatic evaluation, teaching materials presentation, etc. Only having knowledge in Word and Excel makes anybody possible to create their own teaching materials and examinations which can be offered via the Internet, making their own home PCs as a server. Answers from students are stored automatically and permanently in Excel CSV format in the teacher's own PC. Teachers can collect information required for assessment anytime from the internal database. By the time the course is finished, all the documents and handouts as well as all the scores are accumulated and stored in teachers' own PC.

This software is not just lightweight but also so flexible to accommodate many difficult requirements language testing and teaching materials have. Teachers can perform not only quantitative but also qualitative evaluation on students' performance by adding attributes to questions. Different types of testing can be also used. Teachers can control whether or not to show the results of tests to students (just a total score or corrections), whether to allow students to access the materials more than once.

The authors hope "MY Server" will help teachers, who teach with little or no support from institutions, create their courses on the Internet. Offering information or courses on the Internet is no longer a big budget project. It is something any teachers can do by themselves.
Keywords
Server Program
Online test
Language education
e-Learning
Rights
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