WEEK 6: Learning the Robot languages to enhance Language Teaching

This week we have been insanely busy. Among the assigments we were ask to design an enhanced lesson using powerpoint. Another readings probed into the effective stragegies to teach in large classes context. This week I wanted to explore a bit more the possibilities of using Vba to deal with powerpoint presentation. I am quite familiar with hyper linking and that the use of vector images in powerpoint but I thought that some software like abobe or hotpotatoes or platforms such as moodle  offered the easiest way to design quick multiple choice, drag and drop or yes no question traditional activities. This week I was lucky to have a coach to walk me through  the understanding of Vba, and now I think I will consider more this route when making my presentations as it can save a tremendous amount of time. I have caught the virus so to speak. The presentation is available on the wiki.

The other learning experience I have had this week was to skim other the AIML language for the need of my project. AIML is an xml based language used to code the chatbot language. A couple of years ago I came a cross the A.L.I.C.E chatbot. This robot was created by Dr Richard Wallace. Even though I had ideas about using it, I was waiting for a real opportunity to use it. It came with my project which is to give my students more speaking oportunities inside and outside the classroom using web resources. I know it's a very challenging task that's why I would like to give it a try. It's a really interesting topic let's see what the implementattion will yield.