Comments on LANGOLAB: The Picture Game

Hey! If you want to learn the German language, I k...

2010-01-04T01:20:28.212-06:00

Hey!
If you want to learn the German language, I know a great tool: It is completely free of charge and allows you to do more than 20.000 exercises and all grammar topics you can possibly imagine. Furthermore, if you have any questions, there is a German teacher online who will answer them for you.
Check it out: http://www.deutschakademie.de/online-deutschkurs/e

Have fun and good luck learning German!

Best,
Vera

Nik,

Thanks very much for the comment. I sh...

2008-11-17T16:19:00.000-06:00

Nik,

Thanks very much for the comment. I should mention that the game works across any language pair; I just chose German/English for the sake of example and because I'm an English speaker learning German.

I've taken a look at gwap and livemocha. I believe that what I've come up with will be more useful, addictive and intense than livemocha's solution, in spite of the fact that they have millions in funding (I essentially have zero). If by "challenge" you're referring to a technical challenge, the challenge does not exist: I am a proud Erlang coder and it took me about 14 hours altogether to code up the server for this, and it is fault-tolerant and scalable to hundreds of thousands of simultaneous users. There are social, marketing and usability challenges, but I subscribe to the grandiose but time-tested notion that no problem in unsolvable.

Thanks again for your excellent comments. I am flattered and very grateful for your thoughts. I will let you know as soon as the game is up and running.

Adam

Hi There

This is quite an interesting game....

2008-11-17T15:55:00.000-06:00

Hi There

This is quite an interesting game. Firstly, I think there is still strong demand among German nationals and many who still want to and struggle to learn English. The time difference isn't such an issue as there are plenty of people in the UK who want to learn german too and the time difference is only one hour.

http://www.gwap.com/gwap/ (Games with a Purpose). I reviewed it a while back for my blog. http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/05/games-with-purpose-and-social-network.html Some of the games there have some similarities in that there are different players in different countries / places interpreting the same materials (images and audio etc.)together, though there isn't this element of peer correction.

Certainly think there some millage in your peer correction idea, though getting it to happen synchronously will be the challenge. http://www.livemocha.com/ has some interesting approaches to asynchronous peer correction, so it may be worth your while having a look there for some ideas.

Good luck with it.

Best

Nik Peachey | Learning Technology Consultant, Writer, Trainer
http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/
http://quickshout.blogspot.com/
http://daily-english-activities.blogspot.com/

Rudi, Thanks very much for your comment. A beta ve...

2008-11-08T12:11:00.000-06:00

Rudi, Thanks very much for your comment. A beta version of the game will be available within the next 2-3 weeks. I would love for your students to beta test it, if any of them are interested. I have virtually boundless technical expertise and ambition so our imaginations are the limit. If any of them are interested in talking to me about their current chat practice and their visions for something better, then please point them to this blog or directly to me through email. My email address is adam at 8planes.com.

As a high school teacher of German, I'm excited ab...

2008-11-08T11:48:00.000-06:00

As a high school teacher of German, I'm excited about the prospects of having this language practice format available. During our recent German Club meetings, I've observed my GAPP students chatting with their German counterparts using an Internet connection in the classroom, something which I've learned happens from home on a daily basis. I've also watched my students keep written notes on what they were learning during these chats. There's no doubt in my mind that these students would welcome the kind of learning opportunity you are working to offer them. I'm also interested in working such exchanges into my own curriculum. GOOD LUCK, and keep us posted.