Version Español

TECHNICAL PROJECTS



Free Offline Language Exchange Website for International and Local Students in real time as an opportunity for meetings and knowledge transfer.

Nowadays, a lot of students travel, want to improve language skills and be able to integrate effectively within new places of residence in various countries. As world becomes more opened and multinational, Green Development Association wants to create a webpage that meets students' and travelers' specific needs. At present there are some available online language exchange sites, however, above mentioned project aims at offline solutions so connecting people and making real meetings possible on face-to-face basis. Such interactions are found to be positively associated with increase and widening the possibilities of effective learning and integration. Websites that offer offline language exchanges are outnumbered and not so popular yet, they usually work as a message board.

What are the main features of the proposed project? First of all, we can define an offline language exchange easily. For example, you know English and I know Spanish which creates a probability and opportunity for both of us (English-Spanish language knowledge and skills transfer). Thus, through the project website we might contact each other, meet somewhere and devote 50/50 of our time to speaking in Spanish and in English. Optionally, these meetings can be made public once the time and location are arranged in order for other people to join.

How we can define a conversation group then? It is a group of people that attend a regular meeting in a form of an event (weekly, monthly, etc.) where few topics in a certain language are put in a discussion. Skills can also be improved by public performances during such meetings.

The project we would like to develop is based on an innovative website that gives a considerable range of possibilities. It focuses on an opportunity for any user to find a language partner which lives nearby or a conversation group that takes place in real time and is also accesible. Our goal is to make it possible to facilitate and provide language exchanges and conversation groups attendance for anyone interested. The place of individual's stay does not matter here. However, the main aim of this project is for the website to become a #1 language exchange tool in Europe and in the world thanks to innovativeness and effectiveness.

The feautures of the above-mentioned website project are outlined below.

1. Exchanges
    - Search people by language, present location and other personal features in real time.
- Search and create conversation groups by language, present location and topic in real time. Those conversation group events will be Facebook events created from the website.
- Personal area: information about suggested users and conversation groups, modification of personal data, etc.
- Possibility of interaction between Facebook and the webpage in both directions. We will use Facebook api.
- Internal messaging system between members.
- Create conversation events in a certain location. This system will create a Facebook event (any person can create or join it). The creator of the event will have the possibility to invite members that are registered on the website and also any person on their Facebook profile. In that way the promotion of those events is easier and opened to everybody. All of those created events will be listed on the main page of the website as long as they do not become past events.
- Real time maps showing the present location of users and the location of present and future events . We will use Google Maps api v3.0.
- Facebook style chat at the bottom of each page, where everyone can create his 'chatroom' and
contact any user using the chat. You can also exchange your Skype ID and start to talk online. It can be disabled at any time but by default it will be enabled.

2. Language learning resources
- Adapted Mediawiki encyclopedia that will contain language related articles by any user. Moderator features will also be developed.
- Possibility for any person to find a translator for his thesis or any other work. In return the translator will gain more knowledge about a certain language or it could be as a translation exchange: you translate my work in your language and I translate your work in my language. Some universities such as RWTH-Aachen have this system.
- Possibility for any person to publish openly his thesis online and get it translated by several users.
- New vocabulary in some languages displayed daily on the main page along with the translation (learn four new words every day in various languages). It will also be possible to select daily words by category.
- Forum for language related questions
- Possibility for universities to arrange international exchanges


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