The Language Flagship

CULTURE App

Culture Initiative

ABOUT THE APP

Instructional Design & Technology

The Instructional Design & Technology work described in this section was carried out by the Tech Center with frequent and substantial input from the entire FCI team. The Tech Center used a rapid prototyping approach to instructional design and software development (Trip & Bichelmeyer, 1990). Along the three years of the project, three key aspects of the app were defined simultaneously in iterative cycles of design, development, and user testing, namely the instructional design blueprint, the data model, and the design of the user experience.

Instructional Design Blueprint

The instructional design blueprint (IDB) was elicited from the rich pedagogical experience and content knowledge acumen of the entire FCI team. Through various meetings and discussions, the Tech Center assisted in the conceptualization of the main component of the IDB: the module structure (see Figure 1). The module components and structure of the app were informed by concepts in systemic functional linguistics and research in the learning sciences. The inclusion of a rather elaborate description of the context is based on the idea that the situational context will influence the types of meaning that can be expressed (see Halliday & Hasan, p. 22). In other words, the choices for meaning and interpretation are limited by the context of language use. The context then is an important element to help the learner determine the likelihood of a particular critical incident to be interpreted in a particular way (see Figure 2).

As shown in Figure 1, the system offers flexibility in the sequence in which context, language, and culture notes are presented in relation to the vignette, judgement task, and feedback. The choices in the order and placement of components are driven by pedagogical motivations. Currently, those choices are determined by the content developer. An argument can be made in favor of either sequence choice. The display of culture notes before the learner encounters the vignette and is prompted to make choices in judgement tasks can help learners better understand the context of the situation in the target culture. On the other hand, displaying culture notes after learners have assessed the situation creates an opportunity for retrieval practice, which has been demonstrated to assist in long-term retention and transfer of knowledge to different contexts (Roediger & Butler, 2011).

Research in the learning sciences also informed the design of the app. At the user level, the system will provide the choice to enable spaced practice, which has been demonstrated to assist in long-term retention of target material (Rawson, Dunlosky, & Sciartelli, 2013), as well as in the long-term retention of lexical items (Chukharev-Hudilainen & Klepikova, 2016). Although paced practice has not yet been fully automated, learners have access to a list of scenarios whose responses did not fall within an acceptable margin of accuracy (established at 66%). As a next step, spaced practice will be implemented following recommendations provided by research.

Culture App Module Schematics

Figure 1. Culture App module schematics

Context chart example

Figure 2. Context chart example

Development of the Data Model

The data model was developed following an Agile Model Driven Development (AMDD) approach (Zhang & Patel, 2010). Based on the initial requirements of the project, an initial data model was built to capture the fundamental data units that encapsulate high-level components of the system. After an iterative consultation process with the project leads, the data model was evaluated and refined prior to writing any source code. Final approval was based on presenting the model with its corresponding flowcharts to stakeholders. Once approved, it was implemented as a mockup for verification and testing, resulting in the first prototype.

User Experience

The user experience was designed by the Tech Center team using a rapid prototyping approach (Tripp & Bichelmeyer, 1990). Once the basic module structure was implemented, a prototype was created to visualize the path for any given scenario. The Tech Center conducted a focus group with Flagship Program students and alumni to improve app usability. One aspect of the system that received much attention and deliberation was the interface to capture  input. The various levels of tolerance with respect to the accuracy of responses required flexibility in the way the app identifies response accuracy and provides feedback. Because response accuracy is often associated with a range, which can be narrower or wider depending on the judgement (item), it was necessary to devise an interface that could represent this idea. 

Culture App interface - Example from Arabic

References

Chukharev-Hudilainen, E., & Klepikova, T. A. (2014/2016). The effectiveness of computer-based spaced repetition in foreign language vocabulary instruction: A double-blind study. CALICO Journal, 33(3), 334-354, DOI: 10.1558/cj.v33i3.26055

Halliday, M.A.K and Hasan, R. (1976): Cohesion in English. London: Longman.

Rawson, K., Dunlosky, J., & Sciartelli, S. (2013). The Power of Successive Relearning: Improving Performance on Course Exams and Long-Term Retention. Educational Psychology Review, 25(4), 523-548. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43546826

Roediger, H. L.; Butler, A. C. (2011). The critical role of retrieval practice in long-term retention. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 15 (1): 20–27. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2010.09.003

Tripp, S.D., Bichelmeyer, B. (1990). Rapid prototyping: An alternative instructional design strategy. ETR&D 38, 31–44. doi: 10.1007/BF02298246

Zhang, Y., & Patel, S. (2010). Agile model-driven development in practice. IEEE software, 28(2), 84-91.

THE FINE PRINT

Licensing

The Culture App content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

The application code is available in GitHub: https://github.com/llcit/culture-tipps.

The Culture App is licensed under a GPL https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html 

Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

images

Images in the Culture App are licensed from iStock or Pixabay.com, and may have been modified according to license by the Language Flagship Technology Innovation Center. 
Pixabay license type: Free for commercial use. No attribution required
Pixabay Licensing Terms and Conditions: https://pixabay.com/en/service/license/

Privacy Policy

The Language Flagship Technology Innovation Center (Tech Center) built the Culture App as a free app. This Service is provided by the Tech Center at no cost and is intended for use as is. No warranty is provided with respect to the quality or accuracy of the contents of the app.

This page is used to inform visitors about our policies regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of Personal Information if anyone decides to use our Service.

If you choose to use our Service, you agree to the collection and use of information in relation to this policy. The Personal Information that we collect is used for providing and improving the Service. We will not use or share your information with anyone except as described in this Privacy Policy.

Information Collection and Use
For a better experience, while using our Service, we may require you to provide us with personally identifiable information, including but not limited to Email. The information that we request will be retained on our servers.

Cookies
Cookies are files with a small amount of data that are commonly used as anonymous unique identifiers. These are sent to your browser from the websites that you visit and are stored on your device’s internal memory.

This Service does not use these “cookies” explicitly. However, the app may use third party code and libraries that use “cookies” to collect information and improve their services. You have the option to either accept or refuse these cookies and know when a cookie is being sent to your device. If you choose to refuse our cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of this Service.

Links to Other Sites
This Service may contain links to other sites. If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that site. Note that these external sites are not operated by the Tech Center. Therefore, we strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of these websites. The Tech Center has no control over and assumes no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services.

Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. Thus, you are advised to review this page periodically for any changes. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page. These changes are effective immediately after they are posted on this page.

CONTACT US

If you have any questions or suggestions about this page, do not hesitate to contact us at tech.center@hawaii.edu.

The Flagship Culture Initiative was supported by a 3-year grant (2017-2020) to the University of Maryland from the Institute of International Education (IIE), acting as the administrative agent of the National Security Education Program (NSEP), Defense Language and National Security Education Office (DLNSEO) for The Language Flagship.

The Language Flagship is a national initiative to change the way Americans learn languages through a groundbreaking approach to language education through a network of programs at institutions of higher education across the United States. The Language Flagship graduates students who will take their place among the next generation of global professionals, commanding a superior level of proficiency in one of ten languages critical to U.S. national security and economic competitiveness.

This website has been developed and is maintained by The Language Flagship Technology Innovation Center. The content of this website and of the Culture App do not necessarily reflect the position of policy of the U.S. government. No official government endorsement should be inferred.

 

How to cite the Culture App:

Anishchenkova, V., Bass, J., Carvalho Borges, A., Comer, W. J., Davidson, D. E., Evans-Romaine, K., Garas, N., Hanafy, A., Lekic, M. D., Moser, R., Murphy, D., Rodriguez, J. C., Tschudi, S. L., & Arronte, A. (2019, June). The Culture App Version (1.0). The Language Flagship Culture Initiative. The Language Flagship Technology Innovation Center. Retrieved [month, day, year], from https://thelanguageflagship.tech/fci.

The Language Flagship Technology Innovation Center