Language lab (was [school-discuss] Free-Open Baccalaureate Idea)

[Chris Puttick <chris@centralmanclc.com>]

This idea has huge merit for collaborative development on an international
list  - the software solution would be universal, and there's a fair few
different language "experts" available to provide the necessary recordings
(from a UK perspective we need French, German and Spanish to make it
acceptable - Indic and Arabic languages would be the icing on the cake that
would make it a killer app). The proprietary software solutions being sold
to UK schools cost upwards of GBP10k to cover one classroom. That sort of
money buys a lot of development in the right circles!

-----Original Message-----
From: ian
To: schoolforge-discuss@schoolforge.net
Sent: 7/6/03 7:14 AM
Subject: Re: [school-discuss] Free-Open Baccalaureate Idea

On Sun, 2003-07-06 at 00:15, Yishay Mor wrote:
> Ian,
> 
> "a free software language laboratory": just curious - is it about
using 
> software to teach language, or about software languages (as in
programming)?


The former. The School is a specialist languages college as in Modern
Foreign Languages. We are setting up a general purpose computer network
with the view of providing the facilities that dedicated language labs
provide but using free software. So things like digital recording of
students responses in speaking and listening, ability to play digital
video of native speakers, foreign language word processing, and computer
aided learning activities. We are only at the identifying needs stage,
but the basic tools are available. VNC will allow teacher to control
pupil stations, Xine can play video etc We will need to package it up to
be easy to use in a language learning context but since quotes from
Tandberg and similar suppliers put the cost at around £800 per seat for
these facilities on top of computer hardware furniture etc, it seems to
me that schools could save a lot of money if we can invest relatively
small amounts in software development.Should also be applicable around
the world so a good focus for International interest.

-- 
ian <ian.lynch2@ntlworld.com>