I will be gone from the lab this week presenting at the IALLT 2009 conference in Atlanta Georgia with the “DiLL dudes“, as I affectionately call them. Should be a great opportunity to learn new things and meet new people. I’ll try to post pictures and comments throughout the week.

Charting a course toward the interactive language lab using DiLL (Digital Language Lab)

This session will introduce a new language lab system, DiLL, created by Northwestern University and how it has been shared to and used by both university and K-12 peer institutions including Grand Valley State University and the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. Both schools have
seen impressive results using the software including improved ease of use, an increase in lab demand, an increase in number of faculty users, unprecedented levels of student interest and
involvement, and the development of new and innovative teaching techniques that have been made possible only through the use of this new software.

David Shultz (Grand Valley State University), Allison Weiss (University of Chicago Laboratory Schools),
Matthew Taylor (Northwestern University), Zachary Schneirov (Northwestern University), Johnathon
Beals (Grand Valley State University)

A few of the senior Support Associates in IS are working with me to design a rubric-based evaluation tool during the next couple of weeks. We’re pretty excited about this tool. It will allow multiple students to evaluate a single student giving a presentation and offer that student insight into how they might improve.

In other UCLS development news, two 7th graders made headlines this week with their new iPhone app, available now in the App Store. Check out the news clip here.

If you’re in the area, don’t miss the High School production of Alice in Wonderland, which will run May 14, 15, and 16th at 8:00 PM. Tickets are on sale for $10 in the HS lobby.

AP Exams continue this morning. This year, we have about 14 students taking the French AP, 10 taking the Spanish AP, and 2 taking the German AP. Each exam is about 3-4 hours long, but teachers break it up with a nice snack in the middle.

Students have prepared all year for this. Good luck, everyone!

Seven or eight faculty from the University of Chicago Center for the Study of Languages visited us today to learn about DiLL.

The students are off today and faculty are participating in a Professional Development workshops on the “languages” of many disciplines, including math, science, music, and literature.

Tomorrow is Connections and a small team of us will be taking stop motion video of the annual event to show at the end. Should be cool.

Mr. Jon Sun and Ms. Xiang-lu Liang contributed items for a display about Chinese culture. The faces you see around the display are 40 sections of a very long kite. Each of the different colors represents a different kind of general in the Chinese army.

If you are a 6th, 7th, or 8th grader, or have the distinct pleasure of knowing a 6th, 7th, or 8th grader, let them know about this new After School class I’ll be offering April 2 - June 4 on Thursday afternoons in the Lab. Download the flyer or visit the class site.

Online registration began Monday, February 23rd and will end Friday, March 6th.

The Lab is in the midst of much testing this week: the ERB for 8th graders as well as the AATG National German Contest Level II. Students have been very cordial and respectful throughout the process.

A LOT of students are leaving things in the lab these days, I’m not sure why. All of a sudden, as soon as students leave the room, I find notebooks, papers, textbooks, wrappers, pens, papers, etc. scattered everywhere. So this is a friendly reminder to teachers to please build in clean-up/log-off time into the class session. Students: please scan your desk area before you leave.

I have a TIMEX EXPEDITION (Indiglo) Men’s watch at my desk. Sending telepathic message to rightful owner. Scooby Doo found his rightful owner last week, which was good. You’ll see a table outside UH207 with other items that I find during the day.

zwei-zungenbrecherlieder.mp3

STAY HOME. That’s right. Everybody just stay home. It would do us good. Even parents, teachers, and staff need an unexpected day off now and again. It’s high time. So if it’s going to keep coming, by golly, let it come. I want 20″ tonight.

This is me, dreaming in Caribbean Booth (roatanbeach.jpg image from flickr Creative Commons):

Here’s a screen shot of me talking to Ms. Joseph from my desk in the corner:

And here are some clips of a Spanish Class Idol:

spanishclassamericanidol2.mov

spanishclassamericanidol.mp4

I think this is going to catch on… stay tuned…

The Classic Film Club came in today to watch part of a film during lunch. They had a good showing: 17 students snuggled in the Welcome Area, munching on lunch and enjoying Chinatown. Presidents Emily and Sofia may be willing to add foreign films to their viewing program, which is great news, since I was hoping to get a group of students in here during lunches to familiarize themselves with French, German, Spanish, and Chinese cinema.

Meanwhile, Becky López’s class works on a class project in the Instructional Area…

Here are a few of the comic life strips we made as samples:

The idea is to have one from each teacher by the end of next week for their profiles on this blog - so check up on us in coming weeks to see fascinating interpretations of ourselves vis-a-vie Comic Life!

p.s. Students can play with this tool at any point during the school day to make target language comics in the lab…

This side of messy:

This side of nice:

This side of lovely (note microphones pointing up):

MOVING MURAL

Upon the wall, the pictures dance,
I love the way the move;
Drawn from the museums of the world,
Art Institute, the Louvre,

Or other places where fine and
Beautiful things should be–
And now they’re in a language lab
On a wall screen TV.

Paintings and sculpture, photographs
Pass in procession here.
Calligraphy and pottery,
The images so clear.

Art has the power to free the mind,
to replenish the soul–
Even while kids sit at Macs
“Hablando español”

Such unexpected beauty here.
I hope the kids can see.
I hope the share some of the joy
These pictures bring to me.

==================

JUXTAPOSITION

(Haiku Sequence of Attention)

Masterpieces flash
On the wide screen TV.
Intent kids don’t see.

With their headphones on,
They hear Spanish in the lab
And they answer back.

Each has one small screen,
Access to the Internet;
Alone together.

Silently they change:
Paintings, sculptures, photographs,
Fine art of the world.

Still the children work–
Or they talk, oblivious.
Images move on.

This is how it is–
There is beauty close at hand;
Some will never see.