Computer Science Department
A Japanese Kanji Website for Teaching Correct Stroke Order
Morgan Bates
I plan to create a database driven website that would help teach the Japanese form of writing, Kanji. Kanji is the most difficult of the writing styles that the Japanese have. Not only are there thousands of Kanji, but some Kanji have upwards of 20 strokes to a single character. They also must be drawn in a certain way, that is there is a distinct stroke order to each one. What I plan to do is to embed a Java applet, or JavaScript program into the website. This program will let the students draw the kanji on the screen, and record the order of the strokes that they make. I plan to have not only a practice area to the site but also a quiz area. In the practice area they will be able to just draw kanji on the screen and replay the images that they have drawn if they want to. It will also store those kanji in a section of the database so the teacher will know that they have been practicing. In the quiz section the teacher will be able to set up a quiz with questions about how to draw certain kanji or if a recorded kanji that they have drawn is correct or incorrect. The student will then take the quiz and their answers will be placed in the data base for later checking.