OpenAIED SIG

openAIED Interest Group Agenda – 13 November 2018

OpenTEL is pleased to announce that Dr Korina Giaxoglou, OU Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and English Language, and Dr Duygu Bektik, IET Lecturer in Academic Professional Development, will be presenting at the next openAIED Interest Group.

Dr Korina Giaxoglou

What chatbot language can tell us about human language

This presentation discusses what chatbot language can tell us about human language, drawing on examples of chatbot talk to teach the basic properties of human language to beginners in English Language studies. I will offer a preview of the first unit for our new module (L101, Introducing English Language Studies, starting its first presentation in January 2019), which includes:

  1. Activities designed by David Hann and Korina Giaxoglou around interactions with Amazon Echo Alexa
  2. A reading by Philip Seargeant on related developments and challenges in artificial intelligence and natural language processing
  3. A video by Philip Seargeant on robots and language with Professor Angelo Cangelosi and Dr Paul Piwek (also featured in the university’s new advertising campaign on the future of education)

These materials are designed to introduce students to the complexity of human language as well as learning in an engaging way. In addition to explaining the motivations for the design of these materials, I will also highlight aspects that are of potential relevance to AI-related pedagogies in other disciplines and research collaborations in the context of openAIED.

Dr Duygu Bektik

Why is there a need for automated analysis of student writing?

Writing is performing an art; power of words can express love, hate and argue! But how well are we judging the beauty of this art, the subtlety of human language and how reliable are we? This presentation will outline the controversial views on the idea of a machine that would judge a piece of beautifully written composition, an essay; the great literary art that Montaigne conceived and Virginia Woolf carried on. Dr Bektik will focus on undergraduate student writing and argue why there might be a need for automated analysis of undergraduate student writing, based on her Ph.D.

13th November 2018, 10am – 11am. IET Meeting Room 5 – Ash, 1st Floor, Jennie Lee, Walton Hall