learning centers

What every lab manager needs to know about the App Store

What every lab manager needs to know about the App Store

Ask any Apple fan why they love their desktop/laptop/iWhatever and inevitably you’ll hear that Apple Devices Just Work. It’s true that, in Cupertino, hundreds of millions of dollars each year are poured into designing products that are as intuitive and simple as possible, without sacrificing quality. I’m not a member of the Cult of Jobs(…)

It started with a fishtank.

I am the Director of a very unconventional language learning center. First off, it is not in a basement. It is on the third floor of a castle like building with gobs of natural light and way high ceilings. We also do not have carrels. When it was built in 1995 the faculty had the(…)

Low hanging fruit

Low hanging fruit

This entry is part 16 of 35 in the series Teaching Transparently

This entry is part 16 of 35 in the series Teaching Transparently http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrclean/ / CC BY-NC 2.0   O’er the past few days there has been a kerfluffle brewing over at Inside Higher Ed in their Blog U section. As my colleague and fellow LLU blogger Doug posted earlier this week, Joshua Kim, a blogger(…)

Being thankful for the people with whom you get to work/play

I have been in the same job, as Director of a Language Learning Center, for 10+ years. In that time I have worked with 4 and a 1/4 individuals who have more than aptly filled the role of Educational Technology Specialist. (the 1/4 refers to the poor, poor sod who left after a month or(…)

The Name Game

I am taking a poll (and writing a paper) so please help me out and leave your answers in the comment box above: If you work in the area of language learning technology, or know someone who does, please tell me what your/that person’s title is. We all know that it sometimes feels like it(…)

State of the art language learning: if this is you, we can help.

At the same time of the Xerox club (see below), Sister Joan Schmitt was teaching French in the Holy Family High School Language Lab. As you can clearly see, it was a compelling, technology-rich, language learning experience. Please note, if your lab looks like this, please put down the reel to reel immediately and leave(…)

Office 2007: now with more language-y goodness

[cross-posted on techotuesday] After two days of Office2007 training, I’ve a few pieces of info that might be of interest to language folks: Publish Directly to Blog This is pretty cool: if you don’t like your blog’s online post editor, or frequently need to blog when no intartubes are available, Word can automagically take content(…)

AppleTV, anyone?

This afternoon, hundreds of the biggest geeks in the country gathered in San Francisco for MacWorld 2008. Although last week’s announcement of updated desktop systems pointed to Something Really Big to come, I was disappointed by what we got. Do I want a MacBook Air? Duh, of course, even though I think it would more(…)

The Cocktail Party Effect

Last summer, at the IALLT Biennial conference, when I described the addition of parakeets and finches in the set up of our language center, someone remarked “Of course! How brilliant! The Cocktail Party Effect!.” I never knew that there was a name for this, nor that it had a page in Wikipedia. I just thought(…)

Windows Users: what can't an Intel Mac do?

We’re due to have the computers in our lab refreshed this year, and with Gateway being split and sold, we’re not yet sure who will be supplying our campus’s PCs for next academic year and beyond. One idea for how to avoid the whole PC / Mac issue that we had is to simply have(…)