CyberBuch

Multimedia CD-ROM


Summary

CyberBuch is a hypermedia learning application for reading comprehension in foreign language instruction that provides students reading German texts with (a) advance organizers in the form of a movie clip designed to give an ov erview of the story and (b) a variety of glosses or annotations for words in the form of text, graphics, video and sound, intended to aid in the understanding and learning of unknown words. Three rounds of testing addressed the u sability of the program as well as its effects on global comprehension and vocabulary acquisition.

The CyberBuch CD-ROM contains two German short stories: "Anekdote zur Senkung der Arbeitsmoral" by Heinrich Böll and "Wenn die Haifische Menschen wären" by Bertolt Brecht.

The CD-ROM may be obtained from St. Martin's Press. Click here for purchase information.

 

Project Team

  • Dorothy Chun (Director, Linguistics & Language Acquisition, Educational Consulting)
  • Jan Plass (Interface Design, Instructional Design, Programming)
  • Joel Berkovitz (Visual Interface Design, Images, Sound and Movie Design)
  • Martina Eidecker (Educational Consulting)
  • Cheryl Cardoza (Programming, Educational Consulting)
  • Thomas Gottwald (Voice, Educational Consulting)


    Program Description and Objectives

    This interactive multimedia program is designed to improve the reading skills of American students learning German. We incorporate multimedia into our CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning) software to fulfill the following pedagogical goals: 1) to help learners develop higher level reading skills (top-down processes) for reading comprehension and 2) to provide readers with information on individual vocabulary words (bottom-up strategies) in multiple modalities and 3) to allow them to select the kin d of help and information they need in accordance with their individual cognitive or learning styles. Reading comprehension exercises as well as two types of vocabulary tests are also included.


    Other Features

    1. Author's Biography and Background Info
    The author's biography and background information provides the user with information about the time and the place, as well as the social, cultural and political milieu in which the author lived or in which the story is set, and the topics and genres typi cally addressed by the author.
    2. Help System
    The built-in help system provides context-sensitive help (depending on the user's position within the program). Students are led through the program with audio instructions and animated demonstrations for how to proceed and how to access the different fea tures, e.g. the notebook.
    3. Customized Vocabulary Lists (Notebook)
    This feature allows students to compile a list of vocabulary words which they would like to learn and print out.
    4. Administrator's Options
    Instructors (or "administrators") are allowed to select various options within the program, including 1) which of the three types of comprehension exercises they want their students to do, 2) which of the two types of vocabulary tests they want their stu dents to take, 3) whether students have access to the Options Menu. In addition, the user log file (consisting of a record of every action by the user) is displayed.


    Program Evaluation

    To date, three rounds of testing at three California universities have been conducted. User reaction to the program has been overwhelmingly positive, and the data indicate that the program is effective both for vocabulary learning as well as reading comp rehension. In addition, the studies suggest that the use of a multimedia approach can be adapted to students with different cognitive styles (e.g. visualizers learn more efficiently with visual input, verbalizers with textual information). The results o f these tests have been reported in various Journals and Conference Papers.


    Recommended Hardware

    Quadra 650 or better with 8 MB RAM and 640x480 color monitor. Headphones recommended. The program was tested with slower machines with satisfactory results but the hardware mentioned above is highly recommended.


    Prof. Dorothy Chun
    Dept. of Germanic, Slavic & Semitic Studies
    University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4130


    page modified by DMC 7/14/00