language teaching authoring software: summary of responses

[David J Birnbaum]

Dear SEELANGers,

Thank you to all who responded to my inquiry about authoring software 
for developing on-line flashcard drills. Authoring systems recommended 
by SEELANGS readers include the following. All seem useful and well 
designed for various language teaching purposes. For what it's worth, my 
requirements were 1) the ability to deliver files from my own server, 2) 
conformant use of open standards, 3) low cost, and 4) adequacy for flash 
card purposes. Your mileage may vary.

1) Hot Potatoes. http://hotpot.uvic.ca/ This is the system I have 
selected for use in my first-year Russian course at the University of 
Pittsburgh. The licensing information reads "Hot Potatoes is free for 
use by individuals working for state-funded educational institutions 
which are non-profit making, on the condition that the material you 
produce using the program is freely available to anyone via the WWW." 
The cost for other users is $120. Hot Potatoes generates technologically 
robust standards-compliant stand-alone web-based materials that you can 
deliver from your own server, with good support for customization. Audio 
is supported. Accented Cyrillic using the Unicode x301 combining acute 
accent is displayed correctly except in drop-down lists, where the 
accent mark is rendered after, rather than over, the vowel. Registration 
(free) required to unlock some features.

2) WordChamp. http://www.wordchamp.com/lingua2/Splash.do Free for all 
users. Audio integration seems particularly good. All material is open 
access and the site draws on existing resources, so that, for example, 
if you enter a word for which someone else has uploaded audio, the 
system will find the audio and give you the opportunity to use it in 
your activities. Can create files to download to mp3 players, but, as 
far as I can tell, except for the mp3 audio export, the cards can be 
delivered only from the WordChamp server, which means that the longevity 
of your data is tied to the health and stability of the site. WordChamp 
has been around since 2004 (its parent company since 2003).

3) Quia. http://www.quia.com Very varied and capable site with a number 
of activity types not found elsewhere. Nonetheless, I personally am 
uneasy about it because it requires annual payments and because your 
material must be served from their site. This means that should you stop 
paying at some point, you could lose access to work you've already 
created, and it also means that the longevity of your data is tied to 
the health and stability of the site. The cost is fairly modest 
(educational subscriptions are currently $49 per year, with group 
pricing available) and Quia has been around since 1998.

4) Microsoft PowerPoint (or similar presentation software). 
www.office2007.com Can be pressed into service for flashcard drilling, 
but is not designed to support shuffling the deck or deleting individual 
items during a study session. Most users own a copy already, so although 
it is commercial and rather expensive, adapting it for flash card use 
usually will require no additional cost. PowerPoint can embed image and 
sound files.

5) MaxAuthor. http://cali.arizona.edu/docs/wmaxa/ Free for all users. 
Windows-only. Supports annotated reading and activities based on 
annotated reading, but not designed for the decontextualized lexical 
drilling supported by traditional flashcards (although it does support a 
type of flashcard training on vocabulary in continuous texts for 
reading). Supports export as HTML for most features for delivery from 
your own server, although when I tried a sample file available on their 
server and clicked on the links to hear audio, the text window was 
replaced by a QuickTime window (that is, I could no longer see the text 
while listening to the audio).

6) Interlex. http://www.vocab.co.uk/ Free for all users. Stand-alone 
desktop application not designed for web serving.

7) Byki. http://www.byki.com/ Byki-Lite is free; Byki Deluxe (required 
to create your own word lists) costs $39.95. Stand-alone desktop 
application not designed for web serving. Supports audio, including mp3 
download.

Thanks again to all who responded.

Sincerely,

David

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