• Summary of the April 12, 2002 meeting and presentations at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, CT
  
• Upcoming conferences and events
  
• Job openings in the New England area
  
• Report on the NERALLD Business Meeting
  
• Information sheet for a K-12 interest group accompanies this letter. Fill it out and return

Boston College, cynthia.bravo@bc.edu, or langlab@bc.edu

(1) June 9-13, 2002 ASCUE The Association of Small Computer Users in Education conference: Exploring the Impact of Technology on Teaching and Learning. Ocean Creek Resort and Conference Center, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
http://www.ascue.edu/

(2) June16-20, 2002 SummerTech 2002 at Phillips Academy, Andover, MA - an intensive workshop on the use of technology in language teaching; designed for secondary school language teachers with beginning to intermediate-level computing skills
http://www.pafaculty.net/~llc/summertech/summertechindex.html

(3) August 14-17, 2002 Eurocall 2002: "Networked Language Learning" in Jyväskylä, Finland
http://www.solki.jyu.fi/eurocall2002

(4) August 19-23, 2002 Amsterdam-Maastricht Summer University course "Effective Use of the Internet in Language Teaching: What and How" offered at the Graduate School of Teaching and Learning, Universiteit van Amsterdam
http://www.amsu.edu

(1) NEW ENGLAND AREA JOB OPPORTUNITIES - The following New England area institutions have announced job opportunities of possible interest to NERALLD members and/or colleagues. Please contact each school's Employment/Human/Personnel Resources Dept. for job descriptions and status:

(a) Colby College (Waterville, ME) (http://www.colby.edu) - Language Technology Consultant;
(b) Saint Michael's College (Colchester, VT) (http://www.smcvt.edu) - Assistant Director of IT for Language Learning and Instructional Technology;
(c) Trinity College (Hartford, CT) (http://www.trincoll.edu) - Manager/Director of Language Instruction and Technology;
(d) University of New Hampshire (Durham, NH) (http://www.unh.edu) - Director of Language Resource Center

(2) SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard - Looking for more information about that "magical" touch-screen Charlie Long used as his presentation tool at the 4/12/02 meeting at Choate? It's called a SMART Board. Details available at: http://www.smarttech.com/products/smartboard/index.asp

(3) STARR TECH COMPUTING - Our thanks to Irene Starr of UMass/Amherst for sharing her perspective on healthy self-promotion in the workplace and for inspiring the topic of the Fall 2002 meeting. In appreciation and for your reference, Irene's post-Foreign Language Resource Center consulting endeavor: Starr Tech Computing. Email Irene at (is@starr.net) for more information.

(4) TECHNOLOGY GRANTS - Interested in educational technology resources for teachers? Consider asking your institution to subscribe to Technology Grant News and read more about available resources listed in the Spring 2002 issue. (http://www.technologygrantnews.com)

John is the Multimedia Language Lab coordinator at the Center for English Language and Orientation Programs (CELOP) at Boston University. He holds an MA in TESOL and gained all his technology skills on the job. Before outlining his lab activities, John pointed out the main challenge of teaching in a second vs. foreign language environment: the lack of a common language of communication between instructor and students, and the resulting necessity to keep the Desktop interface and user procedures very simple. He favors using technology as a supporting tool rather than as a tutor, avoiding excessive reliance on commercial applications. He recommends that all labs have the student page set-up as a default Desktop image with relevant links on the first page. All ESL students receive a substantial introductory booklet about lab usage and resources.

The following ten activities are most popular at the ESL lab:

1. Word processing, for production-oriented class projects (class books, semester books, surveys, simple Web pages.)
2. Internet-based activities, relying on selected links for language practice (TOEFL), audio practice (National Public Radio), and content searches (Marketplayer.com). Students learn to evaluate sources and search effectively.
3. Textbook audio listening, similar to established practices in FL labs (using publishers’ CDs, or digitizing cassettes and short video clips.)
4. Commercial grammar programs, CELOP uses Focus on Grammar (Longman), Grammar 3d (Heinle &Heinle), and Writers’ Resources (Harcourt Brace.) Other content programs: various grammar, listening and pronunciation programs, the most popular being Pronunciation Power 1 & 2 (English Computerized Learning) and Microreport (Gessler Publishing). GRE and SAT practices are also used.
5. PowerPoint presentations, and related software in the Mac environment: in order to focus on content, students are asked to use ready-made templates and avoid pictures or animation.
6. Student recording, relying on freeware or shareware applications. Not used extensively by ESL instructors at CELOP.
7. Custom-authored lessons, using SuperMacLang or Hyperstudio. Two examples were shown: a self-correcting program to navigate a city map following audio directions, and guided questions on an excerpt of a popular movie.
8. Text-based activities, using the NewReader program (Mac), which develops reading and grammar activities on any text selected by the instructor.
9. Hollywood Theatrix, an authoring program allowing students to create animated plays, inventing characters who will speak the words written for them.
10. Mavis Beacon Typing Tutor, A typing instruction program, especially useful to students educated in different alphabets.

As bonus activities, the lab allows games chosen from freeware or from the CELIA archive for ESL, which has a better selection for Mac than for PC.

John provided a detailed handout with a list of applications used by CELOP and their Web addresses.
The online source for the handout is: http://people.bu.edu/johndesz/neralld

Charles, host of this NERALLD meeting, is in charge of the International Learning Center at Choate. He provided a comprehensive technology set-up for the event, including an impressive, chalkboard-size touch-screen (SMARTBoard) that eliminated any need of keyboard or mouse for his presentation!

Frequent assessment and feedback are essential in a secondary school environment, both for student work-habits and for parental reassurance. However, with the growing migration of instructional activities online, it has also become essential to track student time and activities online. To support his point, Charles demonstrated in a funny and high tech animated clip a sample of multi-tasking, adolescent style: audiofile assignment streaming from the speakers, the latest video playing on the screen, an online chat in progress in AIM, the CD player in the background, and the cell phone secured under the chin…

Choate has recently adopted the course management system Blackboard, but uses it only for assessment, not content delivery. Instructional material (audio, video) has been placed online to be exploited by the instructor in multiple pedagogical ways, always following the four sequential points in the learning process: observing, imitating, using, producing. Because of the vagaries of the streaming process, video delivery is only guaranteed and supported in the lab, thus encouraging regular attendance.

Writing activities make elaborate use of Blackboard for correction and feedback. Charles likes to use technology to solve specific problems, and has fine-tuned his correction process with a color-coded system, allowing student and teacher to identify temporary stages in the online exchange. Confidentiality is preserved as no student can view a classmate’s work online. A small drawback is the current inability to record and archive early and final versions of a paper for later assessment of the progress made.

Not all pedagogical software can be assessed within the Blackboard environment: Charles showed the school’s use of the Spanish drill program Dasher, that has it own embedded tracking and must be used independently. He did note that if he could Web-deliver Dasher, he would.

It is for grading that Blackboard is most useful, making it possible to quantify and qualify students’ strengths and weaknesses in sub-areas (vocabulary, grammar, etc) and to grade very frequently. Grading data, however, must still be entered manually.

As Annenberg’s video series Destinos is online at Choate, NERALLD members discussed the still unsatisfactory conditions set by the publisher for online use of their materials. Cindy observed that IALLT is currently dialoguing with publishers to explore mutually acceptable arrangements in this area.

It seemed quite fitting that Rebekah’s presentation of her distance learning course in Latin should be made from Colorado, due to conflicting engagements. Steven Smolnik, also of the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium, introduced Rebekah’s pre-recorded presentation and reviewed the goals and activities of the Consortium, established in 1997. In his mission to help faculty become familiar with technology in pedagogy, Steve summarized his challenge as trying to "keep faculty away from bells and whistles for the sake of bells and whistles." The presentation, in the form of a soundtrack supported by PowerPoint frames, was created with Camtasia software, and was followed by a live telephone conference with Rebekah during which she answered questions from the group.

a) Recorded presentation.

The Latin course is one of 20 courses offered online to K-12 Colorado students from several counties. Distance learning serves the double purpose of reaching geographically disadvantaged students and granting early access to college-level courses to gifted HS students.

As a non-living language, Latin relies mostly on reading, composition and cultural activities as the foundation for assignments. The online format makes it easy to upgrade the level and pace of work for gifted students, and to manage a "slow" cohort without causing embarrassment. The course runs in two-week cycles, with three levels: Regular, Advanced and Amnesty (as a second chance for drop-outs).

Course material is provided at the beginning of the course, rather than online, in the form of the textbook, a CD created by the instructor, and self-scoring commercial software that is installed for the duration of the course on the student’s personal PC or on the local high school’s network (with prior arrangement with publisher). Research for cultural assignments relies on selected Internet links as well as a digital image library created by the instructor.

Contacts between students and teacher are based on email, telephone conversations, an asynchronous discussion board, and the posting online of PowerPoint presentations by students for their culture assignment. A peer tutoring network is established, with mentors arranging for email and telephone contacts.

b) Teleconference Q & A.

In response to questions from NERALLD members, Rebekah observed that:

• the authenticity of student work is easily recognized, especially in cultural assignments, and a strict course policy is in effect.
• The discussion thread on the online board is not very successful, with most students not even going into the forum, partly out of boredom and partly out of lack of technological savvy. Participation points are given for incentive.
• Students are expected to self-instruct in the use of the commercial applications, with some guidance provided in the initial course packet.
• Students with physical or learning differences do particularly well in the online environment, probably because of a strong support system at home.

In this group brainstorming activity, five workgroups reviewed individual technology ideas and lab/classroom practices, and selected one to present to all members.

Among the ideas presented:

1. Digital Photo Album. One can create thumbnail images, modify the images, and generate HTML pages for image collections by using Arles Software by digitaldutch.com. These image collections can be used for vocabulary practice or cultural information.  
2. Automated web gallery, with a collection of copyright free pictures taken by students abroad.
3. Upgrading traditional activities with technology. Digitizing video clips has made it possible to create more controlled and sequential activities with videos, such as assigning soundless pictures and picture-less sound to two work groups, who must then re-create a coherent narrative together; or practicing "Karaoke-like" exercises on video clips, using well-rehearsed transcripts of the original dialogue.
4. "What You Said/What You Meant" correction activity in which a discussion between teacher and student is videotaped, then critically reviewed. The review points out what the student said, as opposed to what s/he actually meant in the discussion.
5. Send a digital video camera/camcorder with a professor or staff person when they travel overseas.  They can take footage especially of everyday occurrences.  When they return, they can import the footage to imovie and create video clips, including additional sound and/or subtitles, to be used in classes.
   

Barbara Place and Kara Schwartz will be compiling all of the ideas exchanged within the workgroups into a document that will be mailed to meeting attendees.

Connie demonstrated the versatility and usefulness of PowerPoint in a first-year language class, not only for student presentations but to prepare stimulating exercises that provide a welcome change of pace in the classroom.

She presented a series of slides created during the course of an academic year in Spanish, which included:

1. Photos of a few students, with their self-information in Spanish to be commented on and expanded in the classroom.
2. A similar slide, enriched with a bobbing-head action, which provided comic relief and encouraged the completion of unfinished questions on the slide.
3. A weather-related slide linked to Websites, with active icons supporting discussions about the seasons.
4. Animated figures engaged in easily described activities, to reinforce the use of the progressive present.
5. A focus on questioning and description with attractive and varied portraits, in moving sequence, of people of all ages and cultures.
6. A focus on past narrative, based on a visit to the doctor, to be discussed orally in class and continued in the Blackboard chatboard.
7. Sample slides of student-created presentations, to make use of the often neglected cultural units at the end of first-year textbook chapters. As an example, a succession of slides on Machu Picchu was enlivened by a chase for a mystery student that helped keep the attention of classmates.

Connie shared her empirical observations that students responded well, enjoyed the immediate stimulation, and seemed to be learning without looking at the book for reference during the PowerPoint exercises.

A particular advantage of this authoring tool is its extreme ease of use, allowing last minute pedagogical spontaneity and the leisure to create and discard material for one-time use without much pressure on the instructor’s professional time.

Marisa Castagno presented the challenges that confronted her when she needed to assist a faculty member to update her old XmediaEngine multimedia material for Spanish 104, a reading course relying on texts pedagogically enhanced with grammar and vocabulary notes. The material had become difficult to use due to printing issues caused by software incompatibility and the fact that the software was no longer supported. The course material was used both in and out of the classroom, in both electronic and print format, and was self-sufficient for the course, with no supporting textbook. The instructor also needed to be able to enable the Quicktime command within her program, in order, for instance, to stop a video clip at will.

Marisa and the instructor reviewed software options, with the following goals: it had to be Mac friendly, easy to use, and provide full text printing and internal command options (Quicktime). Various programs they evaluated (HyperCard, Director, Hot Potatoes, Shell, Build, etc.) fell short because of the printing capabilities, the steep learning curve or the need for additional programming. StorySpace was eventually selected for its affordability, full print capability, excellent navigability, multimedia support of jpeg, mpeg and Quicktime, good technical support, and transferability of StorySpace documents into Web-readable HTML files.

Some problems were encountered in the transfer, such as the need to re-center the image after using the Copy and Paste feature; occasional crashes and loss of images; the need to magnify some screens; and the incompatibility with some media file formats. Overall, though, the final result was positive, with a very simple new file structure and ease of use. When asked about the advantage of StorySpace over simply placing the material on the Web, Marisa pointed to the independence from a server, the portability, and the likely smaller amount of work needed to produce the new version.