Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!spool.mu.edu!caen!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!lll-winken!aunro!alberta!cpsc.ucalgary.ca!news From: sharp@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Maurice Sharp) Newsgroups: comp.human-factors Subject: Re: Nat. Lang. in Education Message-ID: <1991Jun19.234330.21257@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> Date: 19 Jun 91 23:43:30 GMT References: <1991Jun14.154342.18506@wpi.WPI.EDU> Organization: U. of Calgary Computer Science Lines: 58 In article <1991Jun14.154342.18506@wpi.WPI.EDU> dmorin@wpi.WPI.EDU (Duane D Morin) writes: >1) Easy recognition. Students know that if they ant to "compare" two vars > in a situation, they type "compare" rather than cmp or menu 2 selection 4. This is too simplistic a view of NL usage. What about synonyms ? Worse still, what about reflexivity. That is, the meaning of a word changes depending on the context of use. In addition, the meaning of a word can change as an interaction progresses. In other words, whether students have to learn "cmp", or "compare", or the icon or menu that represents the operation, they still have to learn the interface language. NL does not necessarily make that learning easier. In fact it can make it worse (see below) >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. The problem here is that people tend to assign a full range of abilities based on the demonstration of only a few. That is, if the system demonstrates an ability to understand NL, people will assume it can understand normal english conversation. Since the state of the art is not even close to this (except in very limited domains or toy systems), the students will start using phrases that will not work. >3) Ease of use for teachers. Many teachers shun computer time simply because This is covered by both of the above points. They still need to learn the interface, and they may make more assumptions about what it can do. >Duane Morin >Worcester Polytechnic Institute >Worcester, MA 01609-2208 > >dmorin@wpi.wpi.edu As a general comment, the use of NL is overrated. In some highly constrained domains it may make sense, but as a general user interface tool for any community, the technology just is not there. You are better off designing a system that meets the needs. In other words, you are designing a tool to help get a task accomplished (perhaps teaching addition). Find out a specification of that task, and build a tool to support it. A good place to start is the literature on current tutoring systems. Bill Clancey has done a lot of good work on this. maurice Maurice Sharp MSc. Student (403) 220 7690 University of Calgary Computer Science Department 2500 University Drive N.W. sharp@cpsc.UCalgary.CA Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4 GEnie M.SHARP5 -- Maurice Sharp MSc. Student (403) 220 7690 University of Calgary Computer Science Department 2500 University Drive N.W. sharp@cpsc.UCalgary.CA Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4 GEnie M.SHARP5