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The Excel Spreadsheet Application as Basis for a Computer Assisted Language Learning Activity Authoring System

Karl SklarSt. Michaels CollegeSchool of International Studies

Computer Assisted Language Learning

GSL 520 Spring 1998 Instructor - Christine Bauer-Ramazani

May 3, 1998

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A spreadsheet consists of an array of

addressable cells: each cell is

identified by the, column, and row

that cross at that cell, (known as its

coordinate). Columns are

designated by letters, rows by

numbers

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Cell A1

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Below are examples of a simple activity designed and run in Excel. This particular activity is designed to encourage the study of adjectival collocates. But, it is easily adapted to many other language based applications.

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Notice that there are two lists on the screen ( they are intentionally obscured). The list on the left is an “array” of adjectives. On the right is a list of common nouns.

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Observe the sliders next to each list. The sliders enable the players to select for display, any adjectival - noun pair combination from their respective lists.

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With a third, smaller slider the

player rates the liklihood of

occourance of the combination

as: high, medium, or low.

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Now, we’ll go through the steps it takes to create this activity in Excel. Initially intimidating, with surprisingly little practice it becomes easy,,, even fun.

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Begin by creating a text window.

Select a cell and adjust its column

width and row height until it looks

like the illustration. You do this by

dragging the appropriate column

and row headers.

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The first adjustment can be rough,

it will probably change.

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The next step is to insert a function

into the text window cell. A

function is a formula that performs

some action. The function we will

use here is called the index function.

It looks like this:

index(cr:cr,cr)

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index(cr:cr,cr)

The function’s “arguments” are in parenthesis. They control its behavior.(cr means column - row, e.g. “b10” means column b, row 10).

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index(cr1:cr2,cr3)What does this function do?

Actually, it is a sort of pointer. When you install it in a cell the function says, this cell’s value, will become, and will display as mine the contents of whatever other cell I point to. The pointing is specified by the function’s “arguments”, the stuff in the parenthesis.

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CR1:CR2 means all cells between

and including cr1 and cr2. Eg. a1:a100 means: include all cells in column a from 1 thru 100. Cr3 points to the cell which contains the offset into the array, i.e., the number of cells “down” from cr1. The contents of that cell will now appear in e11.

E11=index(cr1:cr2,cr3)

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We’ll now begin the actual

construction of “the product”.

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an array is defined by c7:c30 (the orange cells) - notice they are all empty. C1 is the top cell in column C. Notice it contains a 5 (the offset value). Notice also that e6, the display window is empty.

These # put here to clarify “offset”

=index(c7:c30,c1)

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Now,, I’ve typed “test” into the fifth cell of array c7:c30. As you might expect, it appears in the text window, e6 (but, notice it adopts e6’s formatting).

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a list of words (adjectives) is inserted into c7:c30. Warm happens to be in the fifthposition. c1 = 5 so the word “warm” is displayed in e6

E6 =Index(c7:c30,c1)

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We will now install a control object - a slider bar. For this we activate the Visual Basic “programming” feature built into Excel.

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Clicking on this “tools” brings up the ‘controls’ menu

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Clicking on this activates the slider control option, enabling the placement of slider objects.

Controls menu

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With the slider installed, the next step is to link it to the index function. To do so we link the slider to cell c1.

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Right clicking on the slider brings up this options menu. Click on “properties” to bring up the slider’s properties box.

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This is the slider’s properties box. Notice the “linked cell” box. Observe that it is set to “c1”. This done, any change in value output by the slider will be reflected in C1. Notice that the output range of the slider is 1 - 20.

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Cell Ci has been linked to the slider. ( notice its value is set at 9). Recall that c1 selects the cell in the array.

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As the slider is moved its output becomes the value of cell c1. This value corresponds to the the word next to it. So, as if by magic,,, it appears in e6, the display window.(remember c1’s roll in the index function?)

(Now were into the home stretch)

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The /Tools/options menu allows us to get rid of gridlines and scrollbars

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Here is how it lookswithout them.

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you can now use Excel’s

copy and paste feature to

duplicate or re create as

many of these selectable

arrays as needed. We’ll do it

once more for the noun set

selector (on the right).

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The word lists can be modified at any time. Changing the list length argument in the function, I.e.(c7:c30), lets the list expand up to 65,000+ cells (c7:c65000).

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The result of our work

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(The player has under-ratedthe likelihood of this occourance)

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Having completed the mechanics, the rest is really just cosmetics. Color, object placement lines, boxes, sound are all optional, the possibilities are endless.

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so

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now

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go crazy!!

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thanks

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