The 2005 ~FAST Tex projects
College of Liberal Arts

Title:
Computer-Based Arabic Vocabulary Acquisition

Faculty Client:
Peter Abboud, pfa@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Abbas Lotia

Project Description:
To allow students to access computer-based vocabulary acquisition drills for Arabic, project participants developed new language software to replicate an older system’s functionality, programming matching/multiple choice/fill-in-the-blank drills based on an existing model as well as adding new content such as audio support.

Title:
German FrameNet

Faculty Client:
Hans Boas, hcb@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Derek Brown

Project Description:
The German FrameNet database is a counterpart of the English FrameNet database, which is a lexicographic resource with the most detailed semantic and syntactic information about verbs, nouns, and adjectives. The goal of this project was to create the infrastructure for the German database by mirroring the English database, which had to be stripped of information about English and re-populated with German data. Once the bare database was set up, students taking the course could work on populating the database in class and as homework activities.

Title:
Texas German Dialect Project: Interview Data Collection Redesign

Faculty Client:
Hans Boas, hcb@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Gilok Choi

Project Description:
Project participants enhanced the data upload, search and sort features, and functionality of the Texas German Dialect Project: a Web-based multimedia archive of Texas German, a native dialect of Texas that is expected to go extinct within 25 years. The archive is used to assist in conducting interviews and to teach students how to analyze independent linguistic research online.

Title:
Philosophy and The Simpsons

Faculty Client:
Daniel Bonevac, bonevac@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Hoa Mai

Project Description:
Teaching philosophy, especially at the introductory level, requires using concrete examples to show how philosophical issues matter and how they apply to the real world. Usually, teachers must use imaginary and rather lifeless thought experiments because real-life examples require much class time to explain. Instead, Bonevac uses the Simpsons, characters either familiar to most students or ones with whom they can quickly become familiar, so he doesn’t need to spend a lot of time explaining background. This project digitized, edited, and compressed 100+ Simpson’s video clips for classroom-based instruction.

Title:
Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: Images and Texts in Translation, Part 2

Faculty Client:
Thomas Hubbard, tkh@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Jonathan Ng

Project Description:
The ~FAST Tex student redesigned the existing Web site for look-and-feel and usability and added an open-forum commenting feature that allows readers to add their comments to specific topics and graphical images.

Title:
Preparation for Spanish Oral Exams via Computer Software

Faculty Client:
Dale Koike, d.koike@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Bharath Balasubramanian

Project Description:
This project was developed for a Spanish course that prepares students who are planning to take the Texas State Oral Proficiency Test (TOPT), a certification exam to teach elementary and secondary Spanish in the public schools. Using a Flash communication server, project participants created a high security application that allows the teacher to create questions and give students feedback via recorded audio and graphics functionality and allows students to record their answers anytime, anywhere.

Title:
Implement CSS for a French Module Website

Faculty Client:
Jane Lippmann, j.lippmann@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developers:
Russell Kalmoe
Chris Lilly

Project Description:
Targeting French verbs, this project redesigned 40 Web-based instructional modules for greater scalability by means of CSS and templates. Each module contains explanations, exercises with answers, and quizzes that are completely accessible to students with visual impairments and that enhance the learning of students with no impairments through the use of IBM’s Home Page Reader.

Title:
Introducing German! German Outreach Program to Local Schools

Faculty Client:
Kirsten Belgum, belgum@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Rong Li

Project Description:
To substantially upgrade a very basic Web site that was developed to accompany the German Outreach Program, project participants redesigned the site’s appearance, layout, and organization while adding new content, such as student work.

Title:
Texas Politics Video Captioning

Faculty Client:
James Henson, jhenson@gov.utexas.edu

Student Developers:
Nicole Auxier
Matheson Muir

Project Description:
In support of a project by the College of Liberal Arts’ Instructional Technology Services to create a multimedia Web site that provides unique, original, and comprehensive resources for university instruction in the fundamentals of Texas politics and government, ~FAST Tex supported video captioning for accessibility.

Title:
Virtual Study Abroad: Writing Place and Space in a MOO. Formerly Virtual Oxford: Writing Place and Space in a MOO

Faculty Client:
Jerome Bump, bump@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Alex Games

Project Description:
This project enhanced a MOO (an online interaction environment) to help convey to Texas-bound students the experience of Europe, especially the architecture, by letting Texas students explore Oxford University and helping students to develop their ability to write about space and place. The ~FAST Tex student developer enhanced the usability and interactivity of the existing project and also developed curriculum assignments to best integrate the MOO into the classroom environment.

Title:
Use of Authentic Audio-Visual Materials in Advanced Language Class

Faculty Client:
Sabine Hake, hake@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Christopher Lilly

Project Description:
To use contemporary German media culture to strengthen students’ linguistic skills—primarily in speaking and listening, but also in reading and writing—the student developer produced an online course resource with learning exercises, German films and TV shows, and textual and photographic material, as well as links to German-language Web sites.

Title:
Best Practices

Faculty Client:
Taran Johnston, taranw@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Michelle Green

Project Description:
To provide quality training examples for graduate student instructors, project participants filmed a class, capturing examples of the best teaching methods and making the materials available to new teachers.

Title:
The Sister Arts: Painting, Poetry, and Gardening in Britain, 1700-1832

Faculty Client:
Lisa Moore, llmoore@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developers:
Richard Meth
Laura Pelton-Sweet

Project Description:
Project participants enhanced the Web site, “The Sister Arts: Poetry, Painting, and Gardening in England, 1700-1832,” a virtual museum, and completed five animated 3D fly-throughs of Mary Delany’s Delville garden, which no longer exists in the real world.

Title:
Closed Captioning for the Web: Accessibility in the Curriculum

Faculty Client:
John Slatin

Student Developer:
Hoa Mai

Project Description:
A continuation of a previous project, this phase included transcribing, captioning, and compressing existing video of interviews with the target audience members for accessible Web sites.

Title:
An Interactive Tutorial on Formal Methods in Natural Language Semantics

Faculty Client:
Bernhard Schwarz, schwarz@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Derek Brown

Project Description:
This project produced an interactive, Web-based tutorial to provide students an opportunity to practice working with math concepts such as sets, relations, and functions outside of class, by presenting definitions with extensive illustrations and interactive exercises that allow students to check their understanding.

Title:
Teaching Indigenous Culture

Faculty Client:
John Weinstock, weinstock@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Hongming Liaw

Project Description:
To make extensive multimedia content on Sámi culture easily accessible to students, project participants posted materials on the Web and transformed current PDF-based content into more interactive, user-friendly HTML pages.