Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!bu.edu!m2c!wpi.WPI.EDU!dmorin
From: dmorin@wpi.WPI.EDU (Duane D Morin)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Nat. Lang. in Education
Message-ID: <1991Jun14.154342.18506@wpi.WPI.EDU>
Date: 14 Jun 91 15:43:42 GMT
Sender: dmorin@wpi.WPI.EDU (Duane D Morin)
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Lines: 47

I'm in the midst of finishing up my undergraduate thesis on a subject very
similar to this (too bad this group didn't exist a year ago!)  So, just to
test some theories, let me list off what I feel to be some advantages of NL
in an educational atmosphere (by definition, here, educational meaning high
school level or junior high).  Debate as desired:

1) Easy recognition.  Students know that if they ant to "compare" two variables
   in a situation, they type "compare" rather than cmp or menu 2 selection 4.

2) Immediate familiarity.  If the student wishes to try something, they can
   certainly find a good starting place in the way it "should" be worded.  
   Going on the assumption that many students will never have seen a computer
   menu system, they cannot be expected to be as familiar with that sort of
   layout. (Note:  Of course, students are rapidly becoming more familiar with
   computers due to home pc's.  But, until ALL students have this familiarity,
   an educational computer system cannot expect to rely on it.)

3) Ease of use for teachers.  Many teachers shun computer time simply because
   they are not confident of their own ability to answer computer based 
   questions from their students.  Others become dependent on their schools'
   support personnel, if such people exist at all.  What the teachers need is
   a system that they can have confidence in and interact with easily, allowing
   them more freedom to use the computers in their classes.

Brief points about my particular system, a natural language statistical data
base:

Interactive vs. Batch mode : Students can ask questions of the system one at
a time, to achieve immediate results, or open up a program file, and make 
multiple requests as needed.

Customized vocabulary:  Words in the dictionary that are not common to the 
 students can be replaced by their own choices, making for an easier to use
 vocabulary.


This post was just a thought of mine.  I may not have expressed my views very
clearly (as a matter of fact, I can guarantee I didn't - you simply can't 
summarize two years of research and development in one quick post).  If this
turns into a half decent discussion, I can begin posting excerpts from my
thesis, or at least from the experience of the study.

Duane Morin
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Worcester, MA 01609-2208

dmorin@wpi.wpi.edu