institution: Willamette University

language: Spanish

status: Full-time, tenure track

type: Course Release, StudentAssistant

title: Web Based Study Aids

duration: 1 semester

description:

We propose to create web-based exercises and activities to help enhance our students' language abilities. In order to produce the exercises, we will be using a program called QuizPlease and a small suite of programs called Hot Potatoes (JBC, JQuiz, JMix, JCross, JCloze). You can see and example of the exercises at the following address http://www.willamette.edu/~bortega/mellon-project-001.html. We will design exercises to supplement first and second year language courses. These exercises will be prepared in accordance with the books and syllabi used at Willamette University.

Another use for these exercises will be as language retention and enhancing aid for the summer. At the beginning of every academic year, we all realize how long the summer has been, and how much it has impacted our students' language abilities. A few students would have traveled abroad or had other opportunities to enhance their language abilities, but for the rest of them summer means falling behind in their skills. Web based exercises offer a practical way of helping those students to retain better and more of the language they have studied during the academic year.

outcome:

We want to provide the Spanish Department with a tool to enhance language learning at the beginning and the intermediate level. When the project is completed we will have created a set of web-based exercises that can be accessed through the World Wide Web, and made available to all the other schools under the Mellon Program. Please visit this site http://www.willamette.edu/~bortega/mellon-project-001.html to see an example of QuizPlase and JBC. In order to see the programs in actions you will need Netscape version 3 or above. Both programs work with the JavaScript language and therefore require a Java-enabled browser, Netscape or Internet Explorer, but it was easier, at this point, to design the QuizPlase example for the Netscape platform. We still have a lot to learn about these programs, and we are open to other options as well.

timeline:

• Spring semester 1999: Planning, organizing and creating the exercises.

  We might be able to have some of them ready for use during the semester, but we do not expect to complete the project until the end of the semester

• Summer 1999: Most of the materials will be ready. Students should be able to use them during the summer as a language retention aid.

• Fall semester 1999: The materials will be ready to be used in conjunction with regular courses.

amount: $4000.00

breakdown:

• 1 Course Release $ 3000.00
• 1 Student assistant $ 1000.00