--- Forwarded Message from Judy Shoaf <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2001 08:25:04 -0500
>To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum               <[log in to unmask]>
>From: Judy Shoaf <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Keyboards for Russian, etc.

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After a long year of fighting to keep the identity of the language lab as we
move from analog to digital, I am now suddenly handed extra space and the
delightful mandate to come up with an "open" lab design. 

I am hoping that the techs involved won't be horrified that I want to
include several different builds (and probably a cluster of Macs in a
generally Windows lab) to accomodate the possibilities of wordprocessing in
Russian, Hebrew, and Arabic, and probably Yoruba, as well as the Roman-based
Chinese, Japanese, and International systems we already have in place. A
phonetics system would be good, too. Obviously, this will involve a lot of
consulting with the faculty about the right keyboarding system to use. I'd
love advice from others who have been able to set up a lab like this.

I had a brilliant idea the other night, which I suspect may have come from
an old LLTI thread, that we could buy extra keyboards and cap them with the
characters for the various languages, and then check them out to students
wanting to use that particular system. Is this something others have done?
Any advice about how to do it? Is there a good source for the key caps? 

Many thanks.

Judy Shoaf
University of Florida
Gainesville