
Hackathon 2020
BUILDING RESILIENCE
in language learners and technology innovators
September 10-13, 2020
ONLINE
About the Event
“Hack The Language Flagship!” is an amazing opportunity to become involved with a group of like-minded peers who have original ideas and want to drive the language technology innovation agenda together. Imagine the possibility of changing the world of language education over one weekend!
The Flagship Hackathon is a fast-paced event optimized for discovery and creativity. Use your experience and seek advice from experts in the field of language technology to propose technology-based solutions (“hacks”) that may impact the future of language learning.
The 2020 Hack the Language Flagship focused on a theme that is at the heart of both language learning and technology innovation: building up resilience. We targeted skills for dealing with setbacks and fostering a tolerance for ambiguity that will help us all become better language learners and better innovators. While training these skills, six student teams devised six different activities for VUCA environments (Volatility, Uncertainty, Chaos, & Ambiguity). Sound familiar? Three of these activities were selected as finalists. The three finalist activities were then implemented as short films. The audience voted for the winner of the three. Read below to learn more about all six VUCA-inspired activity designs
All six activity designs are candidate features for the student oriented Flagship Connect app that is modeled on student designs from the 2018 Flagship Hackathon. Sooner or later, everything connects …
#resilience & #perseverance
#creativity & #adaptability
#insight & #agility
2020 Hackathon Teams
Agility: Training Scenario Repository
Resilience: Flagship Telephone (listening)
Perseverance: Flagship Bonanza
Adaptability: Itinerary Blogpost Challenge
Insight: Snippets (writing)
Creativity: InterACT (speaking)
Guides on the Side (Coaches)
- Nahal Akbari
- Iman Alramadan
- Karen Evans-Romaine
- Julie Evershed
- Thomas Garza
- Madeline Hanley
- Orlando Kelm
- Xiaojing Kou
- Kai Liu
- Laura Marshall
- Ana Oskoz
- Scott Payne
- Dan Soneson
- Madeline Spring
Activity Design Judges
- Naiyi Fincham
- Julio Rodriguez
Hackathon Dream Team
- Suzanne Freynik – Event Support
- Angela Haeusler – Event Support
- Amy Heaton – Co-Lead Facilitator
- Richard Medina – Project Lead
- Fayola Neely – Event Support
- Denis Melik Tangiyev – Event Support
- Stephen Tschudi – Co-Lead Facilitator
Activity Designs
Agility: Training Scenario Repository
Jessica Ng (Team Lead)
Chinese Flagship
Hunter College
Ryan Fields
Arabic Flagship
Indiana University
Olivia Albert
Chinese Flagship
University of Minnesota
Serena White
Chinese Flagship
Western Kentucky University
VUCA Design
In this exercise, Flagship students will have the opportunity to both create and play games that simulate day-to-day life in their capstone location and capstone language. Once a student creates a game, it will be added to a Pinterest board-esque “Training Scenario Repository” sorted by a specified language/country for students to play in the future.
Resilience: Flagship Telephone (listening)
Madeline Achgill (Team Lead)
Chinese Flagship
University of Mississippi
Katherine Sandy
Russian Flagship
University of Wisconsin
Jonah Kocisko
Chinese Flagship
University of Mississippi
Lianna Erhart
Chinese Flagship
University of Minnesota
VUCA Design
This game involves an exchange of audio messages between two Flagship students of the same approximate language level. In the context of a fast-paced game, each student will record a brief, extemporaneous audio message and send it to the other, who will then listen to and have to report back what their partner said. As students gain confidence in the game, they’ll have the option to add additional challenges to their audio recordings, such as static, street noise, and background conversations.
Perseverance: Flagship Bonanza
James Crawford (Team Lead)
Chinese Flagship
University of Hawaiʻi
Reuben Tang
Chinese Flagship
Western Kentucky University
Ethan Joss
Chinese Flagship
Indiana University
VUCA Design
Comprehensive game-based graded reader for students of the Flagship Program. We provide self-study games from beginner to advanced levels (100-400 studies) of study, across a wide range of topics to suit all tastes. We provide engaging content that encourages Flagship students to study often, facilitated by cross-platform integration with Dashboard.
Adaptability: Itinerary Blogpost Challenge
Sarah Smith (Team Lead)
Arabic Flagship
Indiana University
Ali Alani
Chinese Flagship
University of Mississippi
Zoe Rudd
Chinese Flagship
University of Minnesota
Linnea Benson
Korean Flagship
University of Hawaiʻi
VUCA Design
This activity involves presenting students with potentially disruptive situations to increase their comfort level with feeling unprepared. Students will create their own day trip around their Capstone Program city and share it with a partner, who will help them identify potential roadblocks they could encounter. Each student will craft responses to these roadblocks and evaluate them with their partner.
Ainsley Gordon (Team Lead)
Chinese Flagship
University of Mississippi
Anna Backus
Chinese Flagship
University of Hawaiʻi
Xiang Min Mo
Chinese Flagship
Hunter College
Sylvia Tammen
Russian Flagship
University of Georgia
VUCA Design
Users with comparable proficiency in the same Flagship language collaborate to construct a narrative around a real-world topic appropriate to their level, incorporating a minimum number of relevant vocabulary words provided in a word box. Each round, participants receive new words and continue the story snippet shared by their partner.
Daniel Ferro (Team Lead)
Chinese Flagship
University of Mississippi
Bee Yang
Chinese Flagship
University of Minnesota
Cholan Zheng
Chinese Flagship
University of Minnesota
Max Pool
Portuguese Flagship
University of Georgia
VUCA Design
In this activity, two FS students will connect to discuss prompts of interesting topics or practical situations students might encounter. Students will read the prompt and discuss synchronously until a solution to the situation presented is reached. Afterwards, students will reflect on feedback provided by their language partner on how to improve their language speaking skills.
Contact Information
TECH CENTER
1890 East West Road
Moore Hall 256
Honolulu, HI 96822
(808) 956-5121
tech.center@hawaii.edu
