from [log in to unmask] Carol, My $0.02 of advice to your questions: - Our faculty in general hate the Smartboards, even the recent ones that tend to be used in our newer blended classrooms. They want more mobility, and have had much more positive feedback with mobile smart board systems like Doceri (http://doceri.com/), which is what we use in our LRC. Plus, they are MUCH more cost-effective.... - We actually have two Cisco systems, one for students and one for faculty. The faculty use their EDGE 95 to pipe in experts for classroom discussions and for telecollaborative language/ethnography courses with partner classrooms (this semester, Sebastien Dubreil is doing his course team taught with a colleague from the ENSEIRB in Bordeaux). We have those discussions recorded on our lecture capture from www.323link.com/ for deployment onto Bb, iTunesU, Vimeo, or even live feeds through justin.tv. It has also been used to conduct candidate interviews. Students use their 550 MXP to do some homework in those courses, or to be able to have group discussions with friends and family. It has also been getting some traction as a space for having video interviews for academic positions...much slicker than Skype, and the video and sound quality are just better. That isn't to say that we haven't had to think about how to make our Cisco equipment work with Skype for the occasional odd bird. We have settled upon either http://skystonevideo.imagicle.com/ or http://www.1pcn.com/skype/tandberg/index.htm, but have not yet made the decision. - If you are still bound to the desktop model and use Macs at all, I would recommend the iGo (http://www.raindesigninc.com/igo.html). Sturdy and about as mobile as a desktop table gets. If you are computing with laptops or iPads, I would _definitely_ get the new Node Collaborative Chairs from Steelcase ( http://www.steelcase.com/en/products/category/educational/seating/node/pages/node.aspx). They are designed for quick, easy transitions from one teaching mode to the next, have adjustable tables that swivel in tandem with the seats and can be stored, and they have a base that keeps backpacks and valuable personal belongings out of the way. Hope this helps...keep us informed about what you find...it is always exciting to see what everyone else is doing with their centers. doug ________________________________________ Douglas W. Canfield Coordinator III, Language Resource Center Dept. of Modern Foreign Languages & Literatures University of Tennessee [log in to unmask] http://web.utk.edu/~dcanfie1/ Skype: dougcanfield Second Life: Rockytop Berchot Schedule time with me: meetme.so/dcanfie1 ************************************************************************** LLTI is a service of IALLT, the International Association for Language Learning Technologies (http://iallt.org/), and The Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning (http://www.languageconsortium.org/). Join IALLT at http://iallt.org. Subscribe, unsubscribe, search the archives at http://listserv.dartmouth.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A0=LLTI Otmar Foelsche, LLTI-Editor ([log in to unmask]) **************************************************************************