This class explores interaction with mobile computing systems and telephones by voice, including speech synthesis, recognition, digital recording, and browsing recorded speech. Emphasis on human interface design issues and interaction techniques appropriate for cognitive requirements of speech. Topics include human speech production and perception, speech recognition and text-to-speech algorithms, telephone networks, and spatial and time-compressed listening. Extensive reading from current research literature.

In her final semester as a business major, Jade Trinh was uninspired by the obvious career paths open to her. In her 2011 BIF Talk, Trinh recounts her story of stumbling into an entrepreneurship course that revealed an unexpected and exciting new path. She argues that students crave the kinds of real-world, experiential learning environments she was fortunate enough to encounter and urges that experiences like hers should not be the exception, but the rule.

This innovative, trans-faculty subject teaches how information technologies (IT) are reshaping and redefining the health care marketplace through improved economies of scale, greater technical efficiencies in the delivery of care to patients, advanced tools for patient education and self-care, network integrated decision support tools for clinicians, and the emergence of e-commerce in health care. Student tutorials provide an opportunity for interactive discussion. Interdisciplinary project teams comprised of Harvard and MIT graduate students in medicine, business, law, education, engineering, computer science, public health, and government collaborate to design innovative IT applications. Projects are presented during the final class.
Starting in Spring 2010, this course will be titled Enabling Technology Innovation in Healthcare and the Life Sciences.

Learners are using the internet on their smart phones everyday to collect information for school or daily life. The problem is that search engines can produce an excessive number of potential sources, even when filtering the search. This lesson will teach the adult learner how to use a smart phone to define key words, specify criteria, and evaluate the appropriateness of sources. The learner will develop a customized checklist for the search and demonstrate the acquired knowledge of selecting appropriate sources.

"Madar Al-Huruf" means "wheel of letters" in Arabic. The wheel was designed to be rotatable on two sides and user friendly, and it introduces users to the Arabic alphabet. Anyone who is completely unfamiliar with the Arabic alphabet is able to write his/her name by matching English letters and sounds to their Arabic phonetic counterparts. This free app is the virtual form of the physical wheel distributed by Qatar Foundation International.

Click here for the link to the free app on the iTunes store:

Q Wheel App; Madar Al-Huruf

https://itunes.apple.com/mx/app/madar-al-huruf/id717596929?l=en&mt=8

More resources for Madar Al-Huruf:

Download the Q wheel curriculum, which provides an overview of introducing students to the Arabic alphabet and teaching them how to write in Arabic script, at this link: https://www.oercommons.org/authoring/6041-madar-al-huruf-curriculum
You can access the Q wheel workbook, which walks you through the steps of writing your name in Arabic, at this link: https://almasdar.oercommons.org/authoring/6042-madar-al-huruf-workbook/view
About the developers:

Madar Al-Huruf was created and designed by Moneera Al-Badi. Moneera developed the user guide and worked closely with US-based teachers of Arabic in Washington, DC and Tucson, AZ to finalize the wheel's design. Two Arabic teachers in Tucson, Arizona, Fatima Abdulkazem and Nour Jandali, created the mini unit and student workbook, making the wheel a truly global endeavor. Fatima and Nour also developed the TSCTSC strategy to write one’s name in Arabic. This strategy was inspired by and adapted from the book Sugar Comes from Arabic: A Beginner’s Guide to Arabic Letters and Words by Dr. Barbara Whitesides (Interlink Books, 2009).

Furthermore, QFI has partnered with Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), a nonprofit multidisciplinary computing research institute founded by the Qatar Foundation, to develop the Arabic Wheel Mobile Application.

This app was made possible through support and funding from Qatar Foundation International, LLC (QFI). A not-for-profit organization, QFI is a U.S.-based member of Qatar Foundation and is focused on grant-giving and programmatic activities that promote education as a force that facilitates collaboration across geographical, social and cultural boundaries. To learn more about QFI and the Arabic Transliteration Wheel, please visit: www.qfi.org.