A model for automated topic spotting in a mobile chat based mathematics tutoring environment
- Authors: Butgereit, Laura Lee
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Mobile communication systems in education , Mathematics -- Study and teaching , Tutors and tutoring -- Mathematics
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:9809 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1013741
- Description: Systems of writing have existed for thousands of years. The history of civilisation and the history of writing are so intertwined that it is hard to separate the one from the other. These systems of writing, however, are not static. They change. One of the latest developments in systems of writing is short electronic messages such as seen on Twitter and in MXit. One novel application which uses these short electronic messages is the Dr Math® project. Dr Math is a mobile online tutoring system where pupils can use MXit on their cell phones and receive help with their mathematics homework from volunteer tutors around the world. These conversations between pupils and tutors are held in MXit lingo or MXit language – this cryptic, abbreviated system 0f ryting w1ch l0ks lyk dis. Project μ (pronounced mu and indicating MXit Understander) investigated how topics could be determined in MXit lingo and Project μ's research outputs spot mathematics topics in conversations between Dr Math tutors and pupils. Once the topics are determined, supporting documentation can be presented to the tutors to assist them in helping pupils with their mathematics homework. Project μ made the following contributions to new knowledge: a statistical and linguistic analysis of MXit lingo provides letter frequencies, word frequencies, message length statistics as well as linguistic bases for new spelling conventions seen in MXit based conversations; a post-stemmer for use with MXit lingo removes suffixes from the ends of words taking into account MXit spelling conventions allowing words such as equashun and equation to be reduced to the same root stem; a list of over ten thousand stop words for MXit lingo appropriate for the domain of mathematics; a misspelling corrector for MXit lingo which corrects words such as acount and equates it to account; and a model for spotting mathematical topics in MXit lingo. The model was instantiated and integrated into the Dr Math tutoring platform. Empirical evidence as to the effectiveness of the μ Topic Spotter and the other contributions is also presented. The empirical evidence includes specific statistical tests with MXit lingo, specific tests of the misspelling corrector, stemmer, and feedback mechanism, and an extensive exercise of content analysis with respect to mathematics topics.
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- Date Issued: 2012
C3TO : a scalable architecture for mobile chat based tutoring
- Authors: Butgereit, Laura Lee
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Intelligent tutoring systems , Instructional systems -- Design
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MTech
- Identifier: vital:9746 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/1511 , Intelligent tutoring systems , Instructional systems -- Design
- Description: C³TO (Chatter Call Centre/Tutoring Online) is a scalable architecture to support mobile online tutoring using chat protocols over cell phones. It is the scalability of this architecture which is the primary focus of this dissertation. Much has been written lamenting the state of mathematics education in South Africa. It is not a pretty story. In order to help solve this mathematical crisis, the “Dr Math” research project was started in January, 2007. “Dr Math” strove to assist school pupils with their mathematics homework by providing access to tutors from a nearby university to help them. The school pupils used MXit on their cell phones and the tutors used normal computer workstations. The original “Dr Math” research project expected no more than twenty to thirty school pupils to participate. Unexpectedly thousands of school pupils started asking “Dr Math” to assist them with their mathematics homework. The original software could not scale. The original software could not cater for the thousands of pupils needing help. The scalability problems which existed in the original “Dr Math” project included: hardware scalability issues, software scalability problems, lack of physical office space for tutors, and tutor time being wasted by trivial questions. C³TO tackled these scalability concerns using an innovative three level approach by implementing a technological feature level, a tactical feature level, and a strategic feature level in the C³TO architecture. The technological level included specific components, utilities, and platforms which promoted scalability. The technological level provided the basic building blocks with which to construct a scalable architecture. The tactical level arranged the basic building blocks of the technological level into a scalable architecture. The tactical level provided short term solutions to scalability concerns by providing easy configurability and decision making. The strategic level attempted to answer the pupils questions before they actually arrived at the tutor thereby reducing the load on the human tutors. C³TO was extensively tested and evaluated. C³TO supported thousands of school pupils with their mathematics homework over a period of ten months. C³TO was used to support a small conference. C³TO was used to encourage people to volunteer their time in participation of Mandela Day. C³TO was used to support “Winter School” during the winter school holiday. In all these cases, C³TO proved itself to be scalable.
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- Date Issued: 2010