Fall 1997 Meeting
The next NERALLD Conference will take place October 17, 1997 at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where it will be graciously hosted
by Roger Sanchez-Berroa. The primary program feature will be a panel
discussion on the transition from analog to digital labs. Aspects of the
discussion will include: preparation; getting institutional support; and
the training of faculty, staff, and students. Panelists will be Michele
Zimmerman of Amherst College, Dianne McCorry of Wellesley College, Nina
Garrett of the CTW Mellon Project, and Steve Smolnik of Connecticut
College.
Charles Long of Choate Rosemary Hall has offered to run a FileMaker Pro
workshop on the day prior to the conference for those who are interested.
Watch for details on the workshop and the conference itself in the next
newsletter in September.
Connie Christo, Harvard University has offered to host the Spring 98
conference on a topic to be named later.
FLEAT III (IALL 97)
FLEAT (Foreign Language Education and Technology) is a joint conference of
the International Association of Learning Laboratories (IALL) and
the Language Learning Association of Japan (LLA). It will take place
August 12 - 16. The FLEAT III site is the University of Victoria, in
Victoria (Vancouver Island), British Columbia, Canada. The theme for this
years conference is Languages, Resources, and Cultures.
- IALL members will be receiving registration materials in the mail.
- For non-members with internet access, registration information
is available at: http://web/hrd/fleat3
or by e-mailing: fleat3@UVIC.CA
- For non-members without internet access, registration information
is available at: Phone: (250) 721-8294 or FAX: (250) 721-8778.
Summer Advisory Board (SAB)
The wacky and wonderful Summer Advisory Board meeting will be convened in
July at Boston University. On the agenda will be: further discussion of
IALL 01; the Fall meeting and workshop; and the review of the new
operational guidelines for our organization. What exactly is the SAB, you
ask? Well, its anyone who feels they have productive ideas to lend to
NERALLD and who is willing to put in a few hours over a picnic lunch
with other such people on a date and time to be designated by the
President. If you are interested in attending this informal discussion
group, please notify Bruce Parkhurst (contact info below). Bruce will
then contact all the interested folks in order to firm up the details.
Call for Newsletter Contributions
If you will be attending FLEAT III, please consider volunteering to write
up notes of one (or more) of the sessions you attend for publication in
this Newsletter. I obviously cannot be in more than one place at a time
and I would like to put together a comprehensive summary of the conference
for the September NERALLD Newsletter. Remember, it will be much easier to
volunteer right up front than to spend your week in Victoria trying to
hide from me. Besides, I WILL find you eventually.
Thanks,
Chris
April 4 '97 NERALLD meeting at Boston University
summaries by Marta Lehman (Brandeis)
The April 4th meeting started with a tour of the Geddes Language Center.
NERALLD members, refreshed by a scrumptious breakfast, courtesy of our
host, Bruce Parkhurst, had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with
the Center's layout and organization. Aside from many office and
production areas, the GLC consists of an audio/video lab with 64 carrels,
a CD listening area where jukeboxes service the music courses, 2 video
viewing rooms (one for playbacks only, the other for playback and
shooting) and a multimedia classroom with video and data projection.
The tour included numerous presentations, one of which introduced us to
the Center's catalogue and circulation system. Bruce gave a brief history
of the project, and demonstrated the current system, created with 4th
Dimension software, a relational database for the Macintosh. Bruce also
uses it to track attendance, mindful of the importance of creating such
statistics for administrative purposes (to justify renovation, staff
additions, knowing if one is on the right track). The Geddes system
tracks circulation, bibliographic, and production data; circulation
records contain title variations (different languages), author(s), subject
headings, content breakdown when applicable, language, ancillaries,
original medium, user version, vendor, publisher, length, acquisition
info, blurb, copyright status, etc. Labels and barcodes all stem from the
same database.
Cataloguing development was done by a short term professional librarian;
catalogue entries are done mostly from scratch, with some data derived
from the BU librarys main on-line catalogue (accessed via Telnet and then
scripted according to the Center's needs). In the near future, public
access will be available in the lounge area, and hopefully posted on a web
site.
Chris Alberg (Boston College) presented database forms he developed while
working at Wellesley College. The Equipment, Projection, and Videotaping
Requests forms were created with FileMaker Pro 2.1, and designed to handle
a large number of requests by a variety of people. In both the forms and
the system, Chris had built in "a certain amount of redundancy, to
accommodate a certain level of error" - the forms are designed so
that the request taker is forced to get all the right info at the
time request is made. The students enter date, time, equipment, where
it is stored, where it is to be delivered, and personnel assigned for
the job.
Ruth Trometer Massachussetts Institute of Technology , presented her system for materials catalogue,
equipment inventory, staff duties and calendar, created with FileMaker
Pro, 3.0, a relational database which allows for a multitude of sorting
options.
Ruth does the cataloguing herself, relying on information provided by the
faculty members; the catalogue entries contain data about author(s),
title(s), type of original, instructor's name, publishers, vendors, etc.
Labels are produced based on the catalogue entry. Equipment inventory
contains records for all equipment: when bought, where from, repair log,
features (especially important when inventorying computers), equipment
locations. This database is maintained by the AV/Computing technicians.
Staff Notes database contains messages to and from staff, and the Daily
Calendar, printed daily for staff, informs them "at a glance" what is
happening in each classroom, and of any special events.
John de Szendeffy hosted the tour of CELOPs (Center For English Language
and Orientation Programs) Multimedia Language Lab. Set up in 1996 as a
replacement for 3 analog labs, it now consists of 2 lab classrooms
with PowerMacs (student stations) and Performas as teacher stations. The
development area houses a video server (NeTpower Sparta, which runs on
Windows NT 4.0 software), a scanner, CD burner, MPEG encoder, and
various audio and video input devices. Computers are all networked via
Ethernet. The network runs AppleTalk protocols and is managed by At Ease
for Workgroups 4.0 and Network Assistant 2.0. The NT is a data server
only, storing audio and video files on a Mac partition. The AppleShare/At
Ease server is a dedicated PowerMac 7100/80.
The lab provides its users with materials created with the various
authoring tools available at CELOP, commercial software, word
processors, and browsers for web-related work.
Irene Starr (University of Massachussetts at Amberst) presented Time Clock/Scheduling software by
SoftSell, for IBM only. It offers little flexibility, but is a turn-key
system consisting of a "punch-in" clock, employee list, jobs, and a
schedule. Irene offered a tip: call the company for secret codes if you
want to do more with it!
Steve Smolnik and Alex Cote (Connecticut College) presented their Media
Circulation File Suite (or MC File) v.5.0. It was created with FileMaker
Pro, and handles barcoded and non-barcoded materials circulation, records
and maintains a list of patrons and items, maintains a "job book" (which
has a progress report component), and provides a means of communication
between staff members via internal mail - MC Labmail.
Inge Brown (Dartmouth) showed us Digital Doorman which tracks student
attendance, created with HyperCard. Student names are imported from the
Registrar's into the lab's database; barcodes are shared with the library.
A bar-code reader reads student ID numbers, in and out time, and the
course number. The software then generates weekly, term, or cumulative
reports for the faculty, listing the students' names, number of visits
to the lab, and total time spent there.
Charles Long (Choate Rosemary Hall) presented his circulation system
(originally created with Microsoft Word, now Claris Works) which allows
for tracking students by name, time in and out of the lab, total time
spent, items used. This data is given each week to teachers (the Notes
section allows for additional comments, such as "Student did math
instead of French"). The system also tracks the use of materials, so
often used items can be checked for quality and replaced if necessary.
Charles is thinking about putting this info on the web so faculty can
check on student attendance at any time. Members suggested he use a Web
server (such as WebStar), and Tango software for File Maker Pro (version
4.0 will supposedly have a built-in Web server!).
NERALLD Contact Information:
President :
Bruce Parkhurst
Geddes Language Center
Boston University
725 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston MA 02215
Tel: 617/353-2640
brucep@bu.edu
Newsletter:
Christopher Alberg
c/o Dept. of Romance Languages
Lyons Hall 304
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA 02167-3804
Tel. (617) 783-1597
alberg@bc.edu
Summer Institute Announcement
The Connecticut Association of Independant Schools presents:
Technology Coordinators Institute
Vision - Solutions - Building a Peer Network
June 16 - 20, 1997
Choate Rosemary Hall, Wallingford, CT
Vision!
Keynote presentations/interactions:
- Issues for Education in the Information Age - Philip E. Long,
Director, Computing and Information Systems, Yale University
- Wired! Now what? - Bard Williams, Senior Fellow, Apple
Computer Corp.
Solutions! four full days of small group learning.
Choose one of three strands:
- Strand 1: A Nuts & Bolts Approach to Networking
- Strand 2: Training to be a Trainer
- Strand 3: Solutions -Tech Issues, Tech Strategies
Cost: $750 (inclusive); $695 for those arranging their own sleeping
accommodations.
For more information, contact:
Diane Brewer, CAIS. P.O. Box 159 Mystic, CT 06355 Tel. (860) 572-2950
or Bob Berwick, New Canaan Country School, (203) 972-0771
bobberwick@connectinc.com