Website: http://www.nerallt.unh.edu

IALLT website: http://iallt.org/

Published 4 times yearly

The
Prez Sez

From the President of NERALLT: (The New England Regional Association for Language Learning Technology)

Spring is finally here.   The April 28 meeting at Connecticut College provides an important opportunity to learn and critique how major changes in digital technologies have impacted our profession and created new institutional models and partnerships. You will hear case histories from NERALLT members and have an opportunity to discuss your everyday challenges in small groups. We'll have a chance to reflect, provide mutual support, and visit lovely Connecticut College.   Thanks to Host Site Coordinator Marisa Castagno and Program Committee members Dick House, Mary Simone, Otmar Foelsche, Thomas Hammond and Jeremy Bennett for shaping the day's sessions, and designing a pre-meeting survey to inform their planning.

Over lunch I'm hoping to catalyze discussions on getting involved in NERALLT so we can expand our collegial mission and meet your professional development needs.

I encourage you to invite co-workers and colleagues to this meeting who might benefit from the conversation to help enrich our working relationships and partnerships across departmental and institutional boundaries.

I look forward to seeing you soon.

Debra H. Mandel
Northeastern University
d.mandel@neu.edu

Business Matters!

Renew your membership, Please!

During the winter, Membership Chair Inge Brown sent out 23 renewal notices to NERALLT members.   It's never too late to renew.   You may renew using this newsletter's registration form; make a check for $25 to NERALLT and send to me or pay in person at the meeting.    If you wish to be dropped from the membership list, please contact me ASAP.

NonProfit Meeting leads to Discussion on Governance

On February 16, Nonprofit Committee members Cindy Bravo, Ed Dente, and I met at Northeastern University Libraries, and spoke with Mary Morrisard-Larkin and David Kanig via Skype. After much fruitful discussion, we decided not to pursue 501 3(c) status at this time.

The main reasons are:

• lack of experience in this area; we would have to hire legal counsel
• the amount of funds in the NERALLT account are to small to warrant this necessity   ( based on input from two other regional groups)
•   a primary objective of obtaining nonprofit status would be to facilitate the pursuit of grants. At this time, the goal of grant-writing and management is unrealistic, given inadequate time of active NERALLT members.

In the meantime, we will concentrate our efforts on revising NERALLT's board structure, which is a prerequisite for obtaining nonprofit status anyway. IALLT will soon explore the topic of nonprofit status for the regional groups, and we will learn what type of recommendations and/or assistance they might offer down the road.

NERALLT(D) has always prided itself on being a friendly, informal organization. We hope that our efforts will encourage more members to get involved with the organization and to help it to flourish.

Once we get your vote of support, the reinvented Governance Committee will better define officer roles and solidify the process of appointments and elections. The last stage will be to update our bylaws so that they can be voted on by the membership.

At the February meeting, we drafted the following two proposals.   They will be discussed at the spring meeting, and be voted on.

Proposal 1: Board and Governance - - A NERALLT Board would include the following five two-year, elected positions: President; Vice-President; Treasurer; Secretary and Membership Coordinator.

In addition, the immediate Past President would serve for two years as a sixth member of the Board.

Four officers would be appointed by the president, with input from the Board: Newsletter Editor; Outreach Coordinator: and Webmaster.

Proposal 2:   Membership and meeting fee - -
We agreed that having a membership fee is worthwhile, and that benefits of membership should include: entitlement to the newsletter and announcements by e-mail, and the right to vote in elections and decision-making.

We have proposed the following:

     Membership: $10/yr; $7.50 for students.

     Meetings: $25/each, covering a breakfast snack and lunch.

Edited by Mary Morrisard-Larkin and David Kanig

On March 13 th , Barbara Sawhill, IALLT President-Elect, asked IALLT regional group presidents if they would be interested in the IALLT Board supporting regional outreach to K-12 groups by offering workshops. At the spring meeting, we will assess NERALLT's interest and expertise in this arena, what type of workshop(s) we might offer, and how IALLT could help.

Please contact me about any ideas you might have. I will report back to Barbara, who will inform the IALLT Board.

K-12 Eastern Seaboard Conference in Florida, Spring 2008?

As follow-up to Barbara's query, IALLT K-12 Coordinator Frank Kruger-Robbins of Pine Crest School, Fort Lauderdale, FL expressed his enthusiasm for such a venture and described some of his successful K-12 workshops in the Florida region and panel sessions held at other regional meetings.   In addition, Frank is eager to plan a Spring 2008 Eastern Seaboard Conference, probably at the Pine Crest Preparatory School.   SEALLT and MAALT are already pairing up for this event, and he is now inviting NEALLT and NERALLT to join forces. I will provide more details about Frank's work and this opportunity at the Spring meeting.

Cheers,

Coming Events

MULTIPLE LISTINGS :

Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium, (CALICO) website: http://calico.org/calendar.html

IALLT Regional Groups

http://www.iallt.org/about_iallt/regional_groups.html

North East Regional Computing Program (NERCOMP) has many excellent offerings this spring.   http://www.nercomp.org/

HOT DATES:
  April 7-9, 2006 “Technology-mediated Language Learning Beyond the Classroom” NEALLT, Philadelphia, PA, University of Pennsylvania. http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/langlab/NEALL/neallt2006/program06.html

Common Threads Among the Species.   Panel Discussion.
There is a perception that different placement of a language facility on campus will lead to different outcomes. However, our survey data call this assumption into question, highlighting both similarities across types and differences within types (e.g., "department-controlled Language Resource Center"). The results suggest that it is possible for centers to thrive in any number of different arrangements.

This attempt to identify common elements which contribute to success will be moderated by Marshall White , Computer and Information Systems Manager, University of New Hampshire.   Participants will include Dick House , Director, Language Resource Center, University of New Hampshire, Maria Montzolis , Assistant Director, Center for Language Study, Yale University, Joanne Cannon , Asst. Director, Educational Technology Services, Smith College, and John Graves , Director, Language Resource Center, Saint Michael's College.

Lunch, Harris Dining Hall

NERALLT Business Meeting

Strategies for Success.   Two 20 minute breakout discussions.
We will have two discussions of the “Common Threads” brought to light in the morning sessions.   In the first, the groups will be a mix of members, in the second, we will self-select into groups representing (roughly) “Departmental,” “Library,” “IT,” or “Freestanding” Language Resource Centers.

Summative Discussion.   We will again come together to share the results
of the group discussions, with an eye toward identifying what we might do as an organization to share these observations among ourselves on an on-going basis.

Dinner after the meeting, in a local restaurant to enjoy an evening out with your NERALLT buddies, the meal is “on your own”, but the fun is all together.! Please contact Marisa Castagno (mcas@conncoll.edu 860-439-5387) if you would like to join the crowd.