Submitted by Ryan Park and Dahwun Kim for CS247, Winter 2007.
Photos taken from Creative Commons-licensed work found on Flickr. Emoticons licensed from iStockphoto.com.
If you're not familiar with iEARN's teddy bear project, ask us, we can explain.
Our Digital Teddy Bear software allows students to participate in iEARN's "teddy bear project" online. The goal is to reduce the lag time between when photos are taken and when the communication is received at the other end. By communicating over the Internet, students can interact quicker with their remote pen pals. This will allow for more interaction to take place, providing foreign students with more opportunities to communicate with native English speakers.
Before using our software, the student or his/her teacher would take a photo, and the teacher would save the photo to the computer. The student will also write a script detailing exactly what he/she wants to say. The student would then use our software to record their message and "animate" the teddy bear on screen.
This is just a prototype of the user's interaction with the program, so a couple of technical components aren't implemented yet.
1. For this prototype, we can't actually record what you're saying into your microphone. To simulate that, we ask you to use a specific script that we've written. When you play it back, it will sound like what you've read -- just in Dahwun's voice.
2. In a real program, the teddy bear in your photos would be animated on-screen. Obviously we don't have the time or ability to make that happen just yet. So right now we're just putting an icon on top of the teddy bear's face.
Note: We suggest that you use the photo of the teddy bear with the Kleenex.
Today I stayed home with Ashley. Ashley was sick with the flu. She was coughing a sneezing. I thought she needed some tisuse for her runny nose.
I wanted to make Ashley feel better. So I did my funny teddy dance and she laughed. I was happy too.
I hope she feels better soon. Ashley's mommy made some chicken soup for Ashley. I tried it. It was good but I like my honey tea the best.
Now Ashley and I need to get some nap. Good night!