ews | Thomas' Work Space

Status of the language lab and purpose of the LangLabEmailer

2013/06/07 plagwitz 3 comments

Status of the language lab: Modern language labs – digital audio labs with integrated computer classroom management systems, like the Sanako Lab 300 and Study 1200 –
1. are great tools for driving the use and benefit of computer technology into the face-to-face language teaching classroom,
2. but for years have been sorely lacking integration with the rest of the digital campus workflow, mostly through the web-based LMS
  1. Sanako once had a Blackboard integration that allowed to bring media files stored in Blackboard to the file, but not upload student assessments into the gradebook.
  2. I once ran a Sanako Lab 100 that acknowledged that need by providing USB thumb drives for students, and a mechanism to load class recorded files to them at the end of class.
  3. Online components being developed by language lab vendors seem to be lacking the face-to-face teaching component.
  4. Synchronous distance education software (like Adobe Connect, Blackboard Wimba, or Saba Centra) – if not just used like a giant loud speaker in supporting lecture presentations, interspersed with calling up individual students for responses – seems currently best positioned to bring some of the benefits of computer technology to the synchronous teaching arena, but in a different (not applicable to what is still the non-distance norm in language instruction), actually more challenging non-face-to-face setting, and – first and foremost – without special consideration (and tools, like a remote controllable dual track recorder) for language learning.
Purpose of this software:
1. The LangLabEmailer combines knowledge of
  1. how teaching and learning is done in modern language departments
    1. including common issues in the lab (late students)
    2. needs outside the lab
      1. grading from home
      2. documenting longitudinal language development for eportfolio initiatives
  2. how (some: you can help us!) digital audio labs save assessments,
  3. how AD tracks ownership,
  4. how MS-Exchange can be automated.
2. in order to
  1. let the language lab classroom activities (summative assessments, but also formative in the widest sense made so easy by digital audio labs) break out of their isolation in the lab and enter the learning workflow,
  2. by automatic immediate (we have set to 16 times daily) distribution of assessment files (recordings and writing)
    1. to teachers
    2. and – without or with added teacher feedback, including aural – to students via campus email ;
  3. in 30000 digital audio lab equipped classrooms in the world
    1. minus the ones that do not have MS-Exchange infrastructure
    2. plus the ones from other vendors than Sanako – for the above number of classrooms is from SANAKO –, if you share your lab’s configuration back.
Next: Features. Or Langlabemailer (table of contents).

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, documentation, e-infrastructure Tags: ews, langlabemailer, ms-exchange, sanako-study-1200

Testing my Langlabemailer…

2013/04/11 plagwitz Leave a comment

… to improve the integration of the digital audio lab into the university’s language teaching processes – 1000 emails at a time. Smile (Coming soon: same day delivery. More on this project will be available here: https://2013.iallt.org/session/driving-tutorial-call-face-face-classroom-and-what-it-took).