Technology for Cross-Cultural Communication in a Children's International Book Community

新闻媒体每天都会报道来自不同文化的人之间的误解、不容忍或公然的攻击。关于土地、水、宗教和文化习俗的古老争端助长了不容忍。孩子们吸收他们社区的氛围、文化和态度。因此，不容忍的循环代代相传。但改变还是有希望的：研究表明，分享个人经历可以改变人们的态度。当谈到培养耐受性时，早期干预是最好的。多元文化教育文学突出了儿童与来自其他文化群体的儿童互动以及阅读来自其他文化的儿童文学的有效性。该项目的目的是开发所需的技术和社会结构，让说不同语言的儿童在以儿童书籍为中心的数字社区环境中相互学习。绩效指标将解决两个密切相关的技术挑战。第一个是设计儿童友好的用户界面，以支持儿童之间的在线互动和交流；这将通过合作询问来解决，设计团队(包括研究人员和儿童参与者)收集实地数据，提出想法，并测试和开发新的原型。第二个问题是翻译问题；解决这一问题的办法是，让沟通的儿童自己作为合作参与者参与开发支持跨语言交流的语言技术资源的创新办法，而不需要全面的机器翻译。将使用多种方法对拟议的研究进行评估。将在课堂上收集的数据将包括了解来自不同文化的儿童如何使用新技术进行交流、解释故事、发展协作叙事和了解其他文化的变化。这项研究将利用正在进行的NSF ITR资助的国际儿童数字图书馆(ICDL)，PI参与其中，以便提供访问书籍的途径，这些书籍为儿童的“ICDL社区”创造了共同的基础。该项目将通过贡献技术为讲不同语言的儿童提供互动机会，从而增加ICDL的价值。这项研究的智力价值包括：新的界面使说不同语言的儿童能够以他们感到舒服的方式安全地相互交流；翻译技术的进步；以及评估儿童在国际数字图书馆社区的经历的影响。更广泛的影响：这项研究产生的广泛影响包括两个重大贡献：利用技术促进宽容和理解事业的示范在线社区；将向科学界提供的技术试验台，以降低进入门槛，进一步发展儿童和成人的跨文化在线社区。

Every day news media report misunderstandings, intolerance or outright aggression between people from different cultures. Age-old disputes over land, water, religious and cultural practices fuel intolerance. Children absorb the ambiance, culture and attitudes of their community. Consequently, cycles of intolerance pass from generation to generation. But there is some hope for change: research has shown that sharing personal experiences can change attitudes. When it comes to developing tolerance, early intervention is best. The multicultural education literature highlights the effectiveness of children interacting with children from other cultural groups, as well as reading children's literature from other cultures. The aim of this project is to develop technology and social structures needed for children who speak different languages to learn with and from each other in a digital community setting centered on children's books. The PIs will address two closely linked technical challenges. The first is the design of child-friendly user interfaces to support online interaction and communication between children; this will be addressed via cooperative inquiry, in which design teams (including researchers and child participants) gather field data, initiate ideas, and test and develop new prototypes. The second is the problem of translation; this will be addressed by involving the communicating children themselves as collaborative participants in an innovative approach to developing language technology resources that support cross-language communication without full-scale machine translation. A combination of methods will be used to evaluate the proposed research. Data to be gathered in classrooms will include understanding changes in how children from different cultures use new technologies to communicate, interpret stories, develop collaborative narratives, and see other cultures. This research will leverage the ongoing NSF ITR-funded International Children's Digital Library (ICDL), with which the PIs are involved, in order to provide access to books that create common ground for children's "ICDL communities." This project will add value to ICDL by contributing technologies that give children who speak different languages an opportunity to interact. The intellectual merit of this research includes: new interfaces that enable children who speak different languages to communicate safely with each other in ways that are comfortable for them; advances in translation technology; and evaluation of the impact of children's experiences in ICDL communities. Broader Impacts: The broad impacts deriving from this research include two significant contributions: a model online community using technology to advance the cause of tolerance and understanding; and a technology test-bed that will be made available to the scientific community in order to lower the barriers to entry for further development of cross-cultural online communities for children and adults.