#1 Staffing of a Resource Center Dear Suzanne, IALLT publishes three volumes which are essential reading for anyone creating a modern language resource center: 1) Language Center Design Kit 2) Management Manual 3) Digital Language Lab Solutions These should answer just about any question you might have, plus add quite a few you might not have thought about. Jack -- Professor Jack Burston Director Modern Language Center School of Humanities University of Cyprus 75 Kallipoleos P.O. Box 20537 1678 Nicosia, Cyprus Phone: +357 2289 2116 Fax:+357 2275 0310 #2 Staffing of a Resource Center Susanne, Initially you have already considered several things with regards to the roles that people will play within your new center. I would like to offer some other perspectives as well. 1. Try to decide what the overall responsibilities of the person who will manage the center will be such as will the person be required to teach a foreign language. Also, will classes be actually held in the center(We use the language learning center as supplement to what happens in the classroom)?If you are not using the center to hold actual classes, then you may be expanding the services of the current center for instructional support to the faculty. Once you have made this decision this will determine how the pay/benenfit structure will be set up through HR. 2. Try to get input from the faculty of what kind of materials that they see being developed for their classes. You don't need specifics, but general items such as grading tests, quizzes, converting vhs tapes into mpeg or Quicktime files to be viewed, or studentrs be able to record themselves speaking the language as part of a vocal drill assignment. This will help determine what skills the staff need to have to support the faculty and possibly how many staff members will be needed. 3. Well equipment and software will be dependent on item #2. 4. Work shops and/or one-to-one can produce the same benefit. It just depends at a given moment such as if you have installed a new software package, then a workshop wil be best to introduce the basic of the software. Then if someone has a something unique they want to do, then one-to-one will be best(I am doing this now because each instructor will express their level comfort with regards to instructional technology). 5. The number of support staff will be dependent on the combination of the number of languages taught, the number of offerings of the respective lanaguages, past comments from the student evaluations of those courses, and past student performance. I hope this helps. Jason Vance, Supervisor Language Learning Center Thomas Nelson Community College PO BOX 9407 Hampton, Virginia 23670 757-825-2819(Office) 757-825-3807(fax) #3 Staffing of a Resource Center Hi Suzanne, Here is a bit background of what we are before I reply: We are part of the University's library but we work closely with 3 language/linguistics schools that employ an average of 60 lecturers and tutors, 15/20 of whom teach in our computer lab and deaf studies lab and demand constant support - technical, psychological [:-p or material creation -, 10 of whom are part of my CALL interest group (I hope to reach 15 next year). 1) Our center should be a resource center for faculty and TAs to develop and implement multimedia materials. How many support staff will we need? ***For material creation and editing we have a technician (analogue AV editing, maintenance of analogue equipment) and a language technologist (digital AV editing, computer maintenance, CALL adviser and trainer) here at the LLC, VUW. Do we need to look for staff with different types of skills (besides being knowledgeable about CALL)? Beign knowledgeable about CALL already requires a lot of skills :-) The ideal candidate(s) would be someone with a solid language teaching and learning experience (CALL) with a good feel/imagination for digital audio and video couple with a desktop publisher and/or web designer experience (to cope with ever changing trends and tools) 2) Do you suggest to have faculty workshops (do faculty attend these) *** A CALL interest group involving volunteer teachers across your sections/languages would be the best way to go. 1/ To update on your centres changes and news,to provide information on CALL latest trends, to introduce new ways of using technology etc... 2/ To get participants to share their own trial and errors across the language sections and conduct regular (constructive) round table debates about what works and what doesn't for your teachers course contents and teaching styles.. And what to do to faciltate delivery (synchronous/asynchronous) 3/ To identify needs for training on specific applications depending on teachers suggestions and response to new trends 3/ To liaise and share minutes across the wider language sections at faculty/schools meeting and provide training sessions to bigger group when requested. or are one-on-one consulting sessions more productive? *** One to one (or two) are more productive and easier to organise but very time-consuming. I tend to provide one to one training sessions upon request on a small applications - like Audacity or HotPotatoes and sneak in a few pedagogical elements when appropriate -. Teachers have their own busy timetables and it is not always easy to gather everyone for a one hour session in the computer lab - which also fully booked - during the terms. 3) Do you have any suggestions for special equipment and software? ***It depends what you want to do and what you already have, what your teachers do and what they don't (want to) do (and which you would think are essential for them to use).. Another consideration to take into account is WHERE would you want teachers to do their material creation. (in your facilities or in the comfort of their office?) Then you need to consider license requirements.. And it can become really expensive. For equipment I would suggest that your staff work on a MAC as well as a PC to facilitate software cross-platform integration - mainly for web-based interactive exercises (like HotPotatotes) or even director/authorware applications that you could distribute on CD-Roms to your students for independent learning. It is better to check compatibility with the different operating systems when developing rather than finding out when the application is ready for distribution. Sound : Audacity (cross-platform) but not superb quality so good for training. For better quality I use Soundforge 6, Adobe audition (only starting) Video (can't recommend much yet since I am only starting in the business : Adobe Premiere (currently learning to be able to create DVDs of selected recordings of satellite TV per topic, level of language, cultural interest, dpending on teachers' interests.etc..)For DVD creation I will be using DVD encore. I am hearing echoes that macs applications are far better/easier for AV work and I would be happy to try Final Cut pro and cool Edit as well if we come to purchasing these as well. Interactive exercises : HotPotatoes (excellent for drill work and easy to use by teachers (but I would strongly suggest the development to be supervised by an HTML connoisseur) and you can fairly easily embed audio and video into a web-based applications. Cross Platform Authoring Skills success which comes with Study Skills Success an EFL software. PC compatibile only. Macromedia Course builder if you have dreamweaver and of course if you have a good techie Macromedia Director Also Check what course management system (blackboard?) your university is using for they generally have -even limited - interactive testing tools (gap filling, MCQ, etc..) as well that can prove useful and easy to reach to your teachers. Hope this helps :) Please do not hesitate to contact me for more info on what we do here.. **************************** Edith Paillat Language Technology Specialist Language Learning Centre Victoria University of Wellington P.O.Box 600, Wellington New Zealand +64 4 463 5792 http://www.vuw.ac.nz/llc/about/projects.aspx