1. AutoTutor An extension to moodle to create learning activities with intelligent automatic correction (http://autolearn.barcelonamedia.org) Mart Quixal Barcelona Media http://www.barcelonamedia.org MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

2. Overview of the talk The purpose of AutoTutor AutoTutors parts An invitation to collaborate with us MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

3. Overview of the talk The purpose of AutoTutor AutoTutors parts An invitation to collaborate with us MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

4. What is AutoTutor? AutoTutor is a web-based software that has been designed to easily create (language) learning activities including intelligent automatic feedback without the need of being a programmer to allow for a progressive fine-tuning and customization of feedback messages, reducing the hours devoted by teachers to repetitive easily predictable (language) errors MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

5. What does feedback mean? Feedback means to: inform whether the answer is correct or not if it were incorrect: where is the error found? (or where can the text be improved?) whats the reason that makes this an error? how could you manage to repair it? offering instructions to find a solution (book page, a fragment in a text or audio file, etc.) offering a correction proposal (like in Words spell checker) and being sure that the feedback message is appropriate MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

6. What kind of feedback was AutoTutor designed for? Feedback on linguistic errors (focus on form) Feedback on content or communicative errors (focus on content) MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

7. What kind of linguistic errors? Wrong tense/choice of word form What happened to Mintels sales during the last three months? The sales figures of Mintel grow. The sales figures of Mintel grew. Why dont you use the past tense of the verb. MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

8. What kind of content errors? Part of the answer is incorrect What measure have they taken to cope with the increasing demand? The company has reduced its staff. The company has increased its staff. Well, thats not quite the answer, in fact is right the opposite. MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

9. What kind of content errors? Part of the answer is superfluous What measure have they taken to cope with the increasing demand? The clever company has increased its staff and its raining in China. The company has increased its staff. Your answer contains the correct words and content, but check if the words marked in red are relevant. MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

10. Overview of the talk The purpose of AutoTutor AutoTutors parts An invitation to collaborate with us MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

11. What does AutoTutor consist of? AutoTutor consists of three distinctive pieces of software: A moodle extension that allows integrating teaching activities in with an access to NLP processing software. A web-based graphical interface for teachers to author language learning activities. A combination of algorithms that allow for the automatic creation of NLP resources given a specific exercise. MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

12. AutoTutors moodle extension (I) Fully integrated as a moodle activity MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

13. AutoTutors moodle extension (II) Keeping track of learner activity and teacher/peer inspection Feedback to form Teacher comments Learner answer Feedback to content MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

14. AutoTutors moodle extension (III) An interface for the learner to access automatic feedback MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

15. AutoTutors moodle extension (IV) Two other samples of automatic feedback MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

16. AutoTutors GUI for activity creation (I) An interface to create activities as they will be seen in moodle, as well as its evaluation and correction specifications (simplified, not trivial though). MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

17. AutoTutors GUI for activity creation (II) AutoTutor provides with a graphical interface to: Create AutoTutor pages that will be used to connect to automatic correction tools from moodle Define the specifications of how that exercise is to be corrected (which are the correct answers, and which are very common errors that deserve specific attention/feedback) Allow for the generation of all the resources required for intelligent automatic correction/tutoring (without being a programmer!) MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

18. AutoTutors generator of computational resources Automatic Correction tools General spell and grammar checking feedback (pre-existing) Exercise specific feedback defined within the system using teacher input defined by teacher (through interface) Content-checking feedback (defined within the system using teacher input) MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

19. Exercise specific system-defined feedback means Preposition wrong: I am interested at physics. Article missing: John took [] car. Modal verb wrong: You may not cross the street at a red light. Quantificational expression wrong: John has few/little friends. Number wrong: The assignment lasts up to twenty two years. MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

20. System-defined content-checking feedback (I) Blocks are missing Some crucial part of the solution is missing. Please check! Hagia Sophia is famous []. (for what?) Blocks are in the wrong order Check if the order of some information units is wrong. Blocks do not fit together Check if some information units do not fit together linguistically or in terms of contents. MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

21. System-defined content-checking feedback (II) Words that are not part of any foreseen block This part of the solution does not correspond to any part of the possible solutions stored by the system. Please check! Hagia Sophia is famous for its massive dome in Istanbul.* (* The question was formulated in a way that made it unnecessary) Something is wrong This part of the solution contains some or all of the relevant keywords but something is missing or too much or some word form is wrong. Please check! MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

22. Overview of the talk The purpose of AutoTutor AutoTutors parts An invitation to collaborate with us MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

23. Access free and granted for the life of the server Projects site http://autolearn.barcelonamedia.org Moodle http://parles.upf.edu/autolearn Demo courses (for English): http://parles.upf.edu/autolearn/course/category.php?id= 19 Course on using AutoTutor: Go to course AUTOLEARN Istanbul Workshop Group I: aiwg12009 (enrolment key) MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009

24. Contact person: Mart Quixal Email: marti.quixal@barcelonamedia.org MoodleMoot Madrid 09, Octubre 2009