CSCE Capstone

Student Site for Individual and Collaborative Activities

CSCE Capstone

Student Site for Individual and Collaborative Activites

Cherokee Language App

We want to create a new way to learn conversational Cherokee.

Team 15 – Cherokee Language Project

Dec 5, 2020

Meet The Team

Meet the people behind the project

Carter Buckner

Senior, Computer Science Major

Yatish Dubasi

Senior, Computer Science Major

Watson Dunn

Senior, Computer Science Major

Hong Phuc Vo

Senior, Computer Science Major

Tuan Nguyen

Senior, Computer Science Major

Tyler Spreen

Senior, Computer Science Major

Schon Duncan

Cherokee Language Teacher
Carter is a senior Computer Science major and Music minor at the University of Arkansas. He has completed courses in Database and Software Development. He also has experience in STEM education, health research, and aerospace. Buckner will be responsible for tasks 2, 3, and 6. He is also a member of the development team and serves as product owner.
Dubasi is a senior Computer Science major in the Computer Science and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Arkansas. He has (or will have) completed the following relevant courses: Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Database Management Systems, and Advanced Information Retrieval. He also has experience working with image recognition and color detection AI. Dubasi will be responsible for tasks 14 and 15.
Dunn is a senior Computer Science major in the Computer Science and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Arkansas. He has completed Software Engineering, Database Management, and Data Mining. He has interned with Murphy USA for two summers which gave him industry experience with database management and software development. Dunn will be responsible for tasks 4 and 5.
Vo is a senior Computer Science major in the Computer Science and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Arkansas. She has done some group development in Software Engineering and Database Management. She has worked with the module PyGame, creating 2D games and some experience making websites. Vo will be responsible for tasks 10 and 11.
Nguyen is a senior Computer Science major in the Computer Science and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Arkansas. He has completed Software Engineering and has experience working with machine learning and artificial intelligence. Nguyen will be responsible for tasks 12 and 13.
Spreen is a senior Computer Science major in the Computer Science and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Arkansas. He has done group development in Software Engineering and has taken Artificial Intelligence, Database Management Systems, and Mobile Programming. He has also experience in making android apps, Microsoft Azure, and Google Firebase. Spreen will be responsible for tasks 7, 8, and 9

Schon is our champion. We partnered with Schon to create an app that students and teachers would love.

He is a local Oklahoma area teacher who is deeply passionate about teaching the Cherokee language and culture to others.

Project Summary

Dialects of the Cherokee language can be found throughout the US. We have partnered with a local Cherokee language teacher to create an app that caters to middle and high school age students learning Cherokee in the Oklahoma-Arkansas region. The Cherokee language is a conversational language and we aim to teach it through story-based games. Users can practice language basics through flashcard repetition.  The user will have an option to take a picture and create a study set of flashcards based on the objects detected in that picture. The conversational nature of Cherokee will be captured through a story-based game.  As the user completes stages consisting of various educational games, a traditional story from Cherokee culture will be told. 

Cherokee has different regional dialects. This is a large reason why we have decided to introduce an app to cater specifically to the Eastern Oklahoma region. There have been efforts to counter the small number of fluent Cherokee speakers in communities throughout the US. Less than one percent of speakers are considered fluent today and re-education efforts from the 19th century have left a lasting impact on Cherokee traditions. Fortunately, there are already many great regional organizations and online materials available for learning Cherokee. This app would be a way to aggregate resources helpful to students learning Cherokee language in Eastern Oklahoma. This app hopes to be an aid to students on their journey and open learning Cherokee up to a wider population. We hope that this app is a useful tool in schools and communities alike.

Tasks

Completed Tasks

  1. Gain background
    1/10/2021 – 1/17/2021
  2. Develop initial UI
    1/10/2021 – 1/17/2021
  3. Testing 1 – prove flashcard feature works
    1/24/2021 – 1/31/2021
  4. Create stories, questions, and answer options
    1/31/2021 – 2/7/2021
  5. Firebase initialization
    2/7/2021 – 2/10/2021
  6. Implement Firebase retrieval
    2/10/2021 – 2/17/2021
  7. Testing 2 – prove flashcards and story skeleton work together
    2/10/2021 – 2/17/2021
  8. Develop initial story game UI
    2/17/2021 – 2/21/2021
  9. Develop question and answer UI
    2/21/2021 – 2/28/2021
  10. Implement answer validation
    2/28/2021 – 3/7/2021
  11. Testing 3 – Initial User/Blackbox Testing
    2/28/2021 – 3/7/2021
  12. Implement user level/progress functionality
    3/7/2021 – 3/21/2021
  13. Testing 4 – Final user/blackbox testing
    3/7/2021 – 3/28/2021

Future Work

  1. Beta Testing in classroom(s)
  2. Bug Fixes
  3. Explore adaptive layouts (e.g. for tablet, web use)
  4. Add a fill-in-the blank screen (and possibly other mini games)
  5. Give teachers ability to create content for their classes
  6. Add a settings page
  7. Change the difficulty level of questions
  8. Add audio to questions
  9. Disable worlds/levels if you havent’t completed previous world/level