Abstract:

Cloud Learning has emerged to be a new genre of instructional media. In this paper, we present a model of Cloud-based platform for e-education in the National University of Singapore. The target audience is the undergraduates who have no or limited previous Chinese learning experience and would like to take Chinese to meet the language requirement. We develop an interactive Chinese character database hosted on the cloud. Inside the database are stored 3,500 frequently used Chinese characters listed in the curriculum, which covers 99.5% of written and spoken materials. The properties of the characters have been determined such as structures, stroke sequences, radicals, pronunciations, orthography building, components and meanings.

The learning system is built on Google App Engine (GAE), which allows data and resources to be shared over the web through internet-based computing. Students can access it anytime, anywhere, and work on the dictionary together with their classmates. They can customize their search and gain personalized lists of characters with different features to suit their own needs. The learning system also provides students with real hands-on experience in compiling dictionary on computer. By these interactive and collaborative ways, student is not just as a learner, but also as a contributor.

Keywords:

Cloud learning (c-learning), Online interactive dictionary, Chinese characters.