Month: August 2018

L-Pub and Avallain apply AI language technology to e-learning

Posted on by Yerbol Adamov

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has long been the holy grail of the digital education industry. Few companies know this as well as L-Pub, which specialises in the use of AI in language-based applications. Thus, L-Pub and Avallain are now entering into a partnership, which will add the unique skills and technologies of the German language technology company to Avallain products, while introducing L-Pub’s customer base to Avallain technologies in turn.

What L-Pub brings to the table

Founded in 2015, L-Pub is a young and energetic startup with a clear goal: Instead of working on education technology solutions in general, L-Pub focuses specifically on developing highly advanced language technologies. These include automated natural language processing (NLP) algorithms, allowing computer programmes to understand or even produce natural language autonomously, e.g. for automated exercises or individualised learning tips.

“What makes us most excited to work with L-Pub is the fact that they do not follow a generalised approach to AI programming,” says Ignatz Heinz, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Avallain: “They are specialised in providing language processing technologies to publishers as well as educational institutions and that focus has allowed them to achieve great expertise in this area.”

Practical benefits for content creation

This partnership between L-Pub and Avallain is sure to provide numerous advantages to both companies and their end users down the line. Some specific benefits are already tangible and are already scheduled for inclusion in Avallain Author:

  • Automated analysis of learner performance and learning success
  • Analysis and curation of learning content via automated NLP tools
  • Automated support for editorial processes and content creation
  • Support for individualised exercises and information retrieval

For Avallain’s customers, this will bring about a faster and more versatile content creation workflow and Avallain users will be able to design even more individualised learning experiences.

Automated processes create more individualised learning environments

Thanks to AI automation support of the content creation process, Avallain Author will be able to create much larger and more varied sets of learning activities. This provides language learners with more didactic choice, allowing them to skip materials they already excel at in favour of learning areas in which there may be a need for improvement.

This degree of individualisation will be further expanded via adaptive learning algorithms, which L-Pub is currently developing in collaboration with the Technische Universität Darmstadt.

Leading the way to advanced learning technology

While Avallain will be able to use the unique expertise of L-Pub in its long-term strategy of AI integration, L-Pub will be able to offer their customers access to Avallain Author as an integrated authoring tool to simplify their workflow. Likewise, L-Pub customers will be able to increase their reach thanks to platforms and apps created with Avallain Unity. But in the end, the partnership may benefit learners the most.

David P. Steel, Founder & Managing Director at L-Pub puts it most succinctly:

Together, Avallain and L-Pub hope to offer the niche skills that L-Pub has honed to a wider audience. On the one hand, we will provide more publishers with access to cutting-edge language technology solutions, on the other hand, we will be able to reach more end users, making their learning experience better.

Avallain Author version 4.9 – Full GeoGebra integration, Autocorrect Activity Type and additional options

Posted on by Yerbol Adamov

It has only been three months since Avallain introduced language switching, video subtitles and many other useful features in Avallain Author version 4.8. Since then, our customers have not only been asking for new options and Activity Type variants to further individualise their users’ learning experience, but for enhanced maths options as well. Thus, seamless GeoGebra integration is becoming a reality with Avallain Author version 4.9.

More options to enhance the learning experience

This time, the focus of the Avallain Author update lies on taking the next big step towards the future when it comes to teaching and learning mathematics in the digital age, and on making things easier for content creators and learners alike.

Autocorrect

The existing Text Correction Activity Type asks learner to both identify and correct mistakes in text. In the spirit of providing even more flexibility to realise various didactic concepts, Avallain Author 4.9 introduces Autocorrect exercises. This new Activity Type only requires learners to find mistakes and corrects them automatically. This enables our customers to train their learners’ ability to understand written text, audios, videos or images and recognise mistakes.

Flash first answer

This new Specific Option allows exercises to automatically display the first answer. Content creators can set the duration for this on a millisecond scale to suit the individual needs of specific learners or groups. For example, an answer might be displayed long enough to be clearly recognised, so as to help the learner understand what they are supposed to do in the exercise. Or the correct answer may only be flashed for a few milliseconds to motivate the learners when starting into a new exercise.

GeoGebra

The world’s leading dynamic mathematics software is now seamlessly integrated into Avallain Author. After purchasing the third-party licence and enabling GeoGebra in the Project Settings, it can be accessed via an icon in all of Avallain Author’s text editors without losing focus. This makes it much quicker and more efficient to add mathematical elements such as

  • Graphs
  • Formulae
  • Dynamic grids

Even better: GeoGebra objects can be embedded in any existing Activity Type. This allows the Activity Type to be validated and scored like normal, despite having GeoGebra objects embedded.

Customised colour codes for marking

The Activity Type Marking (Highlighting) can now employ a wide variety of custom colours in the Design Package. Content creators can even define “named colours”, specifying a particular colour for particular categories and labels (nouns, verbs and so on). If these exact category names are then used in the Syntax of an activity, the colours are automatically applied. This serves to streamline production workflow and increase efficiency.

Various other features included in version 4.9

Avallain Author 4.9 also includes smaller changes and enhancements such as the ability to easily copy and paste Bookmarker Hotspots from one page to another.

All of these changes,” says Max Bondi, Product Manager Avallain Author, “are aimed at improving both our customers’ workflow and, in turn, the learning experience of their users. We are eager to see this newest version of Avallain Author bring e-learning to a new level and we look forward to hearing from our customers about it. Once the jump to 4.10 happens in 12 weeks’ time, they will be happy to find much of their feedback incorporated into this new version of Avallain Author as well.