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

>Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 12:08:23 -0400
>To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum    <[log in to unmask]>
>From: Judy Shoaf <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: #7154 Monitor functions for French
>In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>

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>Our French dept. uses our old Sony tape lab to monitor classes while they
>do their individual tape exercises.  The lab is falling apart and we need
>to come up with something, hopefully not Sony, Tandberg, ASC or similar,
>that will allow them to listen in while students are doing oral
>exercises, preferably as audio files in a voiceover situation.

Why not those labs? Isn't that what they are designed for? They all have, I 
think, audio interfaces that emulate a language-lab tape deck 
(play-and-record, replay the last bit, etc.) which handle digital audio and 
also video (and will also create audio files on the fly from a tape or CD 
played from the console), and they have the instructor software that allows 
the instructor to listen in. The interaction does require a hardware 
connection between the student computers and the instructor computers. Is 
it that these labs are overkill (too many functions) for what you would be 
doing?  Or is it the problem of configuring a lab with hardware connections?

I think CAN-8 was supposed to have a wireless version coming up a few years 
ago when we were shopping for a lab. This system is relatively cheap and 
allows the instructor to hear what the student has been doing, though when 
I saw it it did not seem to allow for the same kind of real-time monitoring 
and two-way communication as the Sony/Tandberg labs.

Judy Shoaf
Language Learning Center
University of Florida