--- Forwarded Message from Lee Forester <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 06:58:42 -0400
>From: Lee Forester <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
>Organization: Hope College
>To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum     <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Language lab design question
>References: <md5:FADCAD36518F3DD318207A54917A82E1>

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Thanks to all of you who sent me ideas/suggestions/comments on our new
language lab/building project at Hope College.

Now a further question on the actual space: I'm currently envisioning
having a single teaching lab in that the whole lab can be used to host
an entire class (and probably will be during most times in the morning
and early afternoon). As such I want it to be able to function both as a
25-station computer lab (individual and pair work on projects, not
paired dialogs or anything) AND have enough room for 'regular' class
work, i.e. lecture, discussion, small groups etc. Carleton has a nice
room like this for about 20 I think, I'd like one for 25. I imagine the
best arrangement would be computers along the walls with either desk
chairs or perhaps small tables/chairs in the middle.

Do any of you have experience with such an arrangement? What are some
pros/cons? I imagine that accessing computers along the wall may be more
difficult from a maintainance perspective. And how much net square feet
would you envision for such a room? I'm in the nice position of being
able to determine the size of the lab, but anything we use for it comes
out of office and classroom space that we could otherwise have, so I'm
interesting it getting it down to a comfortable but not too roomy size.

Also, I need to set some size for the director's office and admin space.
I'm not envisioning many faculty coming here to develop, just the
director and perhaps a student or two at a time. 

Currently I have blocked out 1200 nsf for the lab and 600nsf for the
director and lab/tech support. I think the lab is probably a bit big -
don't know about the space for the director though since we currently
don't have a director...

So, any input on teaching lab layout/size and a range for support space
(I know it depends of what we have, but that's still up in the air...)

Thanks in advance!

Lee


-- 
Dr. Lee Forester
Assoc. Professor of German
Dept. of Modern and Classical Languages
Hope College
Holland MI 49423
tel: (616) 393-9533
fax: (616) 393-8803
e-mail: [log in to unmask]