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June 2003, Week 2

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From:
LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 9 Jun 2003 15:59:52 EDT
Content-Type:
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--- Forwarded Message from Robert <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2003 14:42:13 -0400 (GMT)
>From: Robert <[log in to unmask]>
>To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum                         <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: #7176.1 IALLT Tech Museum

------------------
Hello, i could not pass up the op. to bring this up.
There is an old Cuban columnist in the El Nuevo Herald--the The Miami Herald clone in Spanish--whose column is titled
"You are really old if..." (you remember what I am about to write about...)
Well, Fausto Miranda, this old codger from Havana who I think was born around the time the American flag came down El Morro Castle (in 1902), remembers--with a bit of help from many of his friends.
So, the IALLT Tech Museum is not a bad idea, and a Virtual tech museum is a great idea.
I remember the Brothers cutting into the mimeos back when--early 1950s in Cuba. I was fascinated by the smells, the inks--the messier it got the funner it was, the mimeograph machine.
I remember one year helping produce a tricolor mimeograph sheet for Christmas (Navidad). Do you youngsters have any idea how hard one had to hit those keys on the Underwood behemoths? And I think I was about 11 or 12 years old way back then.
My love of streamlined portable typewriters was fierce after experiencing the technological impact of grown-up equipment on my poor little chubby fingers. I owned (shanghaided (?) a portable Underwood which probably sells for about $500-600 now. I wrote even love poems on that beauty... Problem was I tried to type as fast as I am typing now, and the keys would cause to entwine and sometimes refused to budge from their tight embrace... Oh, technofun! The IBM Selectric was a wondrous invention. I wrote short stories on it which had no meaning, no logic, but the sheer pleasure of listening to that ball strike paper and roller was better than eating chocolote bars! To this day I am in awe of such a great invention.
We lost it all to the Cuban Revolution. (That's another book)
I was introduced to the concept of computers--when you could buy parts at Radio Shack, and put all of those components together. I was at Purdue University, studying Spanish Literature. I am a humanist... but all my friends were studying engineering, and I could see what the future would bring. The Apple computer was not too far off. I trained on RadioShack's Tandy computers. I worked on Wang wordprocessors--same wondrous feelings as with those felt for the IBM Selectric! I wrote a grant for five Vic computers for my multigrade elementary classes, and made them print text in a foreign language on a dot matrix printer. (All the experts said that it could not be done... but they did not read manuals.)
My first real professional computer was a KAYPRO, which I still have at home, somewhere in the garage, and after twenty years it still works (remember WordStar?)
hasta pronto; Usted es viejo, pero viejo de verdad...
robert
mcfatter tech high school
-------Original Message-------
From: LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 06/06/03 03:57 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: #7176.1 IALLT Tech Museum

> 
> --- Forwarded Message from "Read Gilgen" <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2003 15:50:55 -0500
>From: "Read Gilgen" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: IALLT Tech Museum

Great idea.  Anyone who has old equipment (the older the better) and can
take a digital picture of it, please send the same to me with
information about what it is, your name and institution, and any other
info you can think of that might be of interest.  I'll be happy to
promote this at IALLT and to gather the pix and create a "museum" on the
IALLT website.  Do you think we need board approval?  Nah...  let's just
do it.

OK, all you IALLTers and friends... take the pictures and send them to
me at [log in to unmask]



>>> [log in to unmask] 6/5/2003 2:40:20 PM >>>
--- Forwarded Message from "Dente, Ed" <[log in to unmask]> ---

>From: "Dente, Ed" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: "'Language Learning and Technology International Information
Forum'"     <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: RE: #7142.9 Tracking software (!)
>Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 16:30:53 -0400

------------------

> ------------------
> Read, no wonder you have such a good memory. People who don't
> have (grey) hair always stay young. As for the mimeo-ditto
> controversy, I liked the mimeo better, because you could get
> better reproduction, although the ditto was a lot more
> convenient and you could write by hand or draw. I still have
> some illustrations I made for songs I used when I was
> teaching elementary school English. Oy vey! The main problem
> with the mimeo (other than if the black stuff got on you, or
> worse yet, on your clothes) was correcting mistakes.  You
> really had to be patient and let the correcting fluid dry
> before you retyped, if you wanted a neat correction. But then
> again, wasn't there some advantage to not being able to
> correct so easily? Maybe we had to think a little more before
> committing our words (or "output", as we would call it now) to paper?

> David Ben-Nahum
> The Hebrew University

Hey, Read, Bruno, Nina, David, et al., I've got an idea for the IALLT
web
site.
Why don't we set up a virtual museum on one page, w/ pictures of some
of the
technology that we came of age with that were real tools for
supporting
learning. I'll start - I've still got two working Wollensak 1500SS
units -
now who remembers those guys? These were workhorse open reel player
recorders, otherwise known as "Silver Bullets" among colleagues. They
really
made field recording and playing feasible, as long as you had a good
length
of extension cord.
Anyone still have some open-reel editing tools around? Bruce? I may
have
some too.
I've also got my old Dukane slide-tape projector that the synch never
worked
correctly on, and I THINK I still have our old ditto machine kicking
around.
Throw in the 1966 IBM Selectric typewriter in our next room and we've
got a
good start. We could have our own virtual Smithsonian.

If not, well, there's always e-bay.
Let's discuss it over a pint on the IALLT 03 pub crawl.(subtle PSA for
both
the conf and the crawl.)
Cheers,
Ed
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edmund N. Dente
Director, Language Media Center    Ph: 617-627-3036
Tufts University                   [log in to unmask]
Medford, MA 02155            http://ase.tufts.edu/lmc
"Hanno ammazzato compare Turiddu!"
> 

Robert G. Brito, M.A.
McFatter Technical Center
Magnet High School
Davie, FL 33317

"Winning is not everything, but the effort to win is."
              --Zig Ziglar

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