Back in 2008 and on this site I asked two questions of our esteemed readership:

1) 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 is the “language learning educational technologist center director teaching position library liaison lecturer server person,” but what does the institution actually call it?

2) If you have a dedicated space for language technology/learning/teaching, how does your institution refer to it?

The responses, all of which you can see here, were both numerous and mind boggling.  The diversity of titles for the  jobs and the spaces was  remarkable.

For LLU Live #19, I thought we would continue that conversation and add a challenge:  if you are indeed  your campus’ equivalent of the “language learning educational technologist center director teaching position library liaison lecturer server person,” how is that expressed in your job description?  During this get together I would like for us to talk about who we report to, who reports to us, but also the stuff we are expected to get done on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.  We will create a document together and then share it here for others to add their 2 cents as well.

I am interested to see what we make together!

Interested in joining in? Here is how!

Hope to see you  on  -> THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27th AT 4PM EST <–

(Image Credit: This is Indexed)

UPDATE!

We had a lively conversation about our individual experiences as Center Directors and discussed the important parts of our jobs that need to be highlighted and made more visible to others.

Many thanks to Ryan, Felix, Julie, Harold and Judi for their thoughts and ideas.

I really like how we focused less on the mundane (and universal) tasks like “oversee the maintenance of machines” and created  broad categories of Administration, Collaboration/Outreach, Research, Teaching, and Publishing… tasks that Center Directors do but are not always visible to others; tasks that matters within The Academy.

Please let us know if you have suggestions or additions in the comment section below!

Language Center Director Job Description (2014)

Administration:

– oversees the general operations and scheduling of the Center and affiliated spaces
– supervises the work of the (support staff people, dedicated technology support)
– supervises the hiring, scheduling  and training of approximately xx student staff workers;

Collaboration/Outreach:

– Works with individual language faculty and departments to assess resources for the teaching of languages;  provides training in technologies as needed
– Collaborates with individuals, committees, and departments on campus that are concerned with the use of technology in teaching and learning

Research:

– provides evidence of scholarly achievement in the areas of language teaching and learning, technologically-enhanced teaching
– performs ongoing research into existing tools, pedagogies, and systems to facilitate the teaching of languages

Teaching:

– teaches one academic course per year, actively exploring the connections between language, culture, technology and teaching

Publishing:

– regularly publishes informal writing (e.g. blog posts) focusing on the daily practice of the tasks associated with being a center director
– occasionally publishes formal writing (e.g. conference papers, peer-reviewed articles) focusing on broader issues associated with being a center director

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