Monday, July 2, 2012

Zynga API

Should we consider the Zynga API for our social games on VSC?  What's the cost?


The Zynga API will allow third-party game developers to take advantage of Zynga’s technology and servers, which the company said are strong enough to allow the company to release 1,000 new features to its games in a given week. The Zynga API will allow gaming companies to build their own games on top of Zynga’s technology, enhancing online gaming opportunities for smaller startups.
“Now third parties will be able to focus on what they do best. Enjoy and create beautiful games,” said Kostadis Roussos, chief engineer at Zynga.


Zynga has introduced several new components to zCloud, starting with the Active Social Network (ASN), which Roussos characterized as the "true barometer of social," counting how many people are actively playing with each other. He posited that this science helps Zynga build features for its users that are both social and fun.
Other features include "Matchmaking," connecting Zynga's 290 million monthly players, and "Optimized Game Mechanics," which includes a brand new architecture, codenamed "Darwin," that cuts software requirements in half. Roussos exclaimed that this asset, in particular, is like "magic" because it makes the platform more robust and efficient at the same time.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Apps for education

There is an Apple site with descriptions of apps for education.
Private review sites:
Iear - This site is dedicated to ed app reviews, "A Community Effort to Grade Ed Apps"
Teach Hub - One review of 20.
Reg Swanson's blog about educational apps and how to use them. 827 followers
Interaction Education - emailed 7/1
Apps for Children with Special Needs
Fun Educational Apps

Applicious - General app site, something on education


Help Implementing Grammar Checker / Writing Evaluator


Help Implementing Grammar Checker / Writing Evaluator

I run a small online education company that is eager to implement some level of automated writing evaluation to help with instruction and evaluation on a few of our educational services (
VocabSpellingCity.com, Time4Writing.com, Time4Learning.com).  

Specifically, we would like to implement a technology to assess and provide specific feedback on the quality of student writing such as:
- Grammar mechanics: proper construction of sentences (subject, verb, final punctuation)
- Basic mechanics such as capitalization, subject-verb agreement (tense, plural, etc), consistency on plural and singular
- Advanced mechanics such as prepositional phrases, sentences of appropriate length, nuances of word choice, avoiding awkward, ineffective, or unclear writing
- Writing quality: vocabulary usage, organization, development  

We are looking for an individual or team to provide us with guidance and implementation,  

BTW, I've checked with the Kaggle team as to whether it is OK to post here with this request for contacts and got approval. If you are interested, I'm mayor at spellingcity dot com.  

AWE - automated writing evaluators

I'm on the hunt for some technology and some consulting help to implement a grammar checker for the student writing materials on VocabularySpellingCity.com and for broad use with Time4Writing.com (web-based writing tutorials).

Right now, I'm following up on an HP-sponsored competition on automated writing evaluators over at Kaggle.com.  The question ansd answer there quickly led me to the ETS Section on Automated Scoring of Writing Quality.

My RFP is for technology to assess and provide specific feedback on the quality of student writing such as:

  1. grammar mechanics: proper construction of sentences (subject, verb, final punctuation)    
  2. Basic mechanics such as capitalization,  subject-verb agreement (tense, plural, etc), consistency on plural and singular
  3. Advanced mechanics such as prepositional phrases, sentences of appropriate length, nuances of word choice, avoiding awkward, ineffective, or unclear writing
  4. Writing quality: vocabulary usage, organization, development

ETC says (and I quote from http://www.ets.org/research/topics/as_nlp/writing_quality they have "an active research agenda to develop linguistic features suitable for modeling aspects of meaning structure in essay-length responses, such as:
  • metrics of text coherence
  • the use of supporting facts from external sources
  • the writer's stance toward the material presented
  • the identification of particular topics addressed in the response

Featured Publications

Below are some recent or significant publications that our researchers have authored on the subject of automated scoring of writing quality.

2012

2010

2009

2008

2006

2005

  • Online Assessment in Writing
    N. Horkay, R. E. Bennett, N. Allen, & B. Kaplan
    Online Assessment in Mathematics and Writing: Reports from the NAEP Technology-Based Assessment Project
    NCES Report No. 2005-457
    U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
    The 2002 Writing Online (WOL) study is the second of three field investigations in the Technology-Based Assessment project, which explores the use of new technology in administering the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Learn more or download the full report.

2003

Writing Evualators - Old Notes


There is a set of automated checkers which are a standard tool on most word processors, even on phones.

They are useful tools that could/should be made available in courses for people to learn how to use them.  They also provide a huge time savings for teachers to give  good (but not necessarily perfect) feedback to students on their writing.

This is very relevant to T4W and VSC. There are three overlapping types:
- simple spelling checkers. Checks if the word is in the Dictionary.
- grammar checkers. What this checks is an open question in my mind. Word certainly checks if there is a noun and a verb, if they agree, and if a word is repeated. What else?
- automated writing evaluators. Used to grade many standardized tests. Doesn’t statistically do worse than human testers.

Papers on the topic:


Grammar Checkers ( There are probably more!):
-          http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/link/,
-          http://www.languagetool.org/

Educationally Oriented:
-          WPP from ERB https://www.wpponline.com/Home/Welcome
-          Vantage MyAccess http://www.myaccess.com/myaccess/do/log
-          Criterion from ETA http://www.ets.org/criterion


Consumer Oriented: