EDUKWEST #63 with Brad Patterson of SnaPanda

Hey Kirsten-

Thanks again for sharing this with your community.  It was one of my first interviews ever, so please forgive the goofiness and the fact that I never looked at the camera.  Oops !  Would love to hear what folks out there think after giving our panda a try.  

Cheers, Brad

Great questions, Rick and I’m glad to be digging into a Kirsten Winkler post with you once again

1)  SnaPanda uses Princeton’s open source dictionary, WordNet.

2) The next step for SnaPanda is to be able to search any word within the definition provided.  From a pedagogical stand point we support students using a L1 dictionary.  From there, we may choose to develop L2 dictionaries ie.  english-french, however, we’re not quite there yet.  Beta panda

3) The most recent version of SnaPanda has a new approach to phrasal verbs— whereas originally you could snap “multiple words”, now if you snap “put”, you will find “put up with”, “put on”, “put down” etc.  We’ve found this approach more user-friendly.

4) Many users have requested the multi-lingual dictionary, and it’s in the road map, as well as the business model.  I’m going to approach this issue from a more global level, and also from “the teacher thinking of the best mode for his students” (which isn’t necessariliy what the students find “most convenient”).  

At an advanced level, wouldn’t it be better for students to “saturate” a bit more in the target language ?  Of course with intermediate/beginner levels, this may provide a bit “too much” challenge, but then again, there is a significant percentage of smartphone users out there that are already intermediate or beyond.  I think those are the users who we’re targeting.

Again, thanks for your Qs and happy to answer any more questions, THOUGH, tomorrow I take off for the states and won’t be available until mid-week.    Cheers, Brad

Thanks, Brad.  I appreciate the precise answers, and am in no hurry for a reply.  Feel free to respond whenever you find time.  

1.  I like WordNet, but isn’t it an odd choice for ESL students?  It certainly was not designed with ESL students in mind.  Among other things, there are no pronunciation cues.  I can see the business rationale — it’s open source — and I see value for young Anglophones who are working on their vocabulary.  We are also on the same page that a single-language dictionary is probably not the right tool for beginning and intermediate ESL students.  I leave the market size questions to those with the data on the subject.

2.   I’m not troubled by SnaPanda’s current lack of bilingual dictionaries or more sophisticated search techniques.  SnaPanda is in Beta, and one can only do so many things at a time.  I’m just trying to determine how SnaPanda can help my students.  

3.   I need to see SnaPanda’s phrasal verb approach in action to make sense of it.  A picture is worth a thousand words, as someone smarter than me once said.  The new approach, however, seems to resemble that of a traditional dictionary.  To me, that is a positive development.

4.   I am not convinced that a single-language dictionary is always best for advanced students.  These students often are reading a text for general comprehension, and not to study the various ways a word is used.  In this case, a one-word translation from L1 is often sufficient when a single word in L2 presents a problem.  In other words, the students want the meaning of the unknown word as fast as possible, and then they want to move on.  If that’s the student’s goal, then I am reluctant to make the task any harder than necessary.  OTOH, advanced students are likely to have problems with idioms and other expressions.  A product like SnaPanda could conceivably have the edge over a bilingual dictionary in this case.

5.  Contrary to when they are reading, students are really interested in word usage when they have to speak or write.  They need to know whether it is “it depends of” or “it depends on,” they need to know if it is “she is married with Bob” or “she is married to Bob,” et cetera.  Can SnaPanda be used when a student is writing?  Students can certainly take a picture of a word they type on a word processor and look it up.  Whether WordNet is an appropriate tool to help resolve this sort of problem is another question.

Thanks again for your time.

Hey, Brad.  

Thanks again for the reply.  Your comments on the future of dictionary development are interesting.  As I said before, I need to play with the Panda and look at its features in more detail so that I can thoroughly understand what EduLang has developed.

Hope your flight was uneventful and that you have a safe return back to France.

Best,  Rick