--- Forwarded Message from "Richard Laden" <[log in to unmask]> ---
>From: "Richard Laden" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: "LLTI-Editor" <[log in to unmask]>
>Cc: <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: New version of LangLab PASSPORT (ADVTSG)
>Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:01:24 -0800
LangLab PASSPORT 3.0 is now available
E-LangLab, LLC is pleased to announce that a new 3.0 release of LangLab
PASSPORT is now available. The most significant enhancement in this version is
support for teacher-controlled synchronized work by a class, which complements
the usual and more pedagogically efficient self-paced work by students. A
teacher using LangLab's Monitor module can take control of the Client module for
each student present, to have the class work in unison. The teacher can make the
Client module play a clip and stop it and can initiate recording and stop it.
Such teacher-controlled work facilitates administering or practicing for
standardized tests with restrictions on hearing a clip and time allowed for oral
responses. The teacher can release control at any time and revert to self-paced
work by students. In teacher-controlled mode as in self-paced work, a teacher
can listen to students and choose to interrupt and speak with one. Students can
also call the teacher and ask for help in case of a problem.
A teacher who takes control can use the Call All function to ask questions,
then initiate recording and have students answer the questions in items that
have no initial audio clip. In this way a teacher can improvise lessons when
there has not been time to record or import audio clips and assemble other
materials for items of a lesson beforehand. Teacher-controlled recording of oral
responses can also follow impromptu use of audiovisual materials projected or
played outside LangLab PASSPORT.
Our Web site http://www.elanglab.com has been updated to reflect changes in
this version. Our News page announces this release and has a link to release
notes, for instance, and a new image of the Monitor screen appears in the How It
Works section. We'd be happy to provide a free fully-functional demo version of
LangLab PASSPORT to any institution considering such a solution. The institution
can set up the demo version in a client-server configuration to test
capabilities such as real-time monitoring, pair and group work, and
teacher-controlled ensemble work, and can even configure remote access, as might
be used by faculty preparing lessons at home (they would go automatically on the
server) or retrieving students' oral and written work, assessing it, and
providing feedback to students (including by inserting comments anywhere in
their recordings), as well as by students doing homework on a computer at home
or in a dorm room.
For those not previously familiar with LangLab PASSPORT, it is an all-skill
multimedia software platform for language teaching that can transform any
computer room or classroom with laptops (wired or wireless) into a language lab,
and can also be used over the Internet. It is the only cross-platform software
with its range of functionality--it runs with Windows, OS X, Linux, etc.,
thereby eliminating worries about what kind of computer faculty and students
have at home--as well as being by far the least expensive solution of its kind.
The current version of LangLab is considerably more powerful and even more
user-friendly than the older version that, in the last IALLT survey, was the
only product to receive the top score in each category of evaluation. LangLab
provides capabilities for both self-paced and teacher-controlled work by
students, testing as well as instruction, and pairing and grouping as well as
individual work, with pair/group conversation perhaps predicated on materials
students watch, read, listen to, or look at. It allows easy authoring of
lessons, with sound recording and insertion of recording pauses as well as
import and editing of existing sound files, use of written questions and other
textual material with answer mechanisms of the appropriate types, and
association with lesson items of instructional resources such as Web pages,
images, video clips, Powerpoints, and documents. It supports teacher-student
interaction through both real-time monitoring and later evaluation of students'
work and feedback to students, with the module that students use alerting them
when such feedback is available. Where additional classroom management functions
are desired, such as views of student screens, broadcast of the teacher's screen
or a student's screen, blanking the screen or freezing the keyboard and mouse
for students not on task, LangLab can be used in conjunction with inexpensive
complementary software (e.g., GenevaLogic's award-winning Vision product, for
which we are a reseller), for a total price vastly less than the cost of other
language-lab solutions with such capabilities.
--Richard Laden
____________________
Dr. Richard A. Laden
Director, E-LangLab, LLC
Berkeley, California
[log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask]
Web site http://www.elanglab.com
***********************************************
LLTI is a service of IALLT, the International Association for
Language Learning (http://iallt.org/), and The Consortium for Language
Teaching
and Learning (http://www.languageconsortium.org/).
Join IALLT at http://iallt.org.
Otmar Foelsche, LLTI-Editor ([log in to unmask])
***********************************************
|
