The Language Box has always been part of the activities of the Language and Linguistics Subject Centre (based at Southampton) who were involved in the original Faroes project, but we have recently been discussing how to make the Langauge Box more obviously a part of the Centre’s work and online presence. The JISC funded Faroes project (which developed the Language Box) has just ended, and the OneShare project (which will continue to support and develop the site) has just started, so its a good time to start planning for the long term sustainability of the Language Box. Over the next few months we intend to more clearly brand the site as part of LLAS activities, and we also hope to build links with their existing website and web teams.

We are also discussing the possibility of moving the existing materials bank from its current home on their website into the Language Box, to more easily enable the community to find, comment on and extend the resources.

The Faroes team presented the Language Box at RSP 2009 (Repositories Software Day) in Manchester yesterday. We were supporting ePrints, the repository software that powers the Language Box. RSP is a JISC event that brings together repository software providers and the wider repository community to showcase the latest developments in the field. There were approximately 150 delegates.

Everyone we spoke to responded enthusiastically to the fresh look and feel of the Language Box, the immediacy of access and the simplicity of the design. When we said that the one of our design principles has been to simplify and reduce metadata - there were heartfelt sighs of longing - from users of other repositories!

This nice faroes poster was popular with delegates

The event was held in the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, a fantastic re-use of an old factory. For the techies among us, it is the shrine where ‘baby’ (now 61 years old), the world’s first stored program electronic computer.

RSP was great opportunity for us to network with other providers and to talk about new initiatives in the field like the Language Box and to encourage other providers to work with their users to design better experiences.

A common concern that was raised in the keynote speech (by Tony Hey, ex head of School at ECS and now a VP at Microsoft) is that most repositories have few deposits. This is something that we all need to work on to change the culture of use.

From February 2009 LB was opened to a group of 20 students of Spanish to explore their role as producers of content as well as their attitudes towards the resource. The experience is so far possitive, although some students found initial problems (mainly technical) which are in the process of being solved. Pariticipation is gradually picking up after a slow start.

The pilot scheme is being monitored and results will be presented at the 4th International Blended Learning Conference which will take place in Hartfordshire on 12-14 July 2009.

This week we’ve got some great news from JISC. We have applied for funding for several projects related to the Language Box and we have recently heard that we have been given the go ahead for all of them.

OneShare -  is the largest of the projects. The goal of OneShare will be to explore the relationship with institutional repositories and VLEs. We will be working with the team from EdShare, the Faroes sister project, to explore how we might work towards a more integrated deposit once solution. Another goal is to make the technical inovations from Language Box and EdShare available as stand-alone EPrints extensions. This should allow other EPrints systems to benefit from things like the preview tool and collections system.

AllAboutMePrints - is a small development project to create an EPrints extension based on the Language Box profiles system. This will eventually work alongside any extensions that come out of OneShare. A key part of the extension will be a widget that will allow users to include profile and download information in their own websites and blogs.

Worcester Learning Box - is being run by Andrew Rothery at the University of Worcester. The goal is to create a University wide installation of the Language Box software for the lecturers at Worcester to use to store and share their teaching materials. We will be helping Worcester to install their version, and will be supporting them over the next year, and updating their system with any innovations from the OneShare project.

Open University Learning Box - is being run by Anna Comas-Quinn at the OU. The goal is similar to the Worcester Learning Box but will be focused around supporting Language teachers and students within the OU. Having their own copy of the repository should allow them to share resurces more privately, although we will also be investigating how public resources might be reflected up into the community site.

These projects mean that we can continue to support and develop the Language Box software, and get more benefits from the hard work that the Faroes team has put in over the last 18 months. We will post more details once we have them. The projects are all due to start in April.

Today I was invited by the SMiLE Team from the School of Language, Literature and Culture at the University of Brighton to give a workshop on the Language Box. I met with a group of six tutors of Modern Languages, e-learning enthusiasts themselves and active in exploring and implementing new online tools and services to facilitate their teaching.

I gave a long and detailed presentation, highlighting all features and all potential uses of the Language Box. The discussion session that followed was very interesting, partly because it showed some changing attitudes towards the idea of sharing resources (yes, it does make sense, they said!), and partly because some of the attendants have picked up some important technical issues, which I will bring to the attention of the project team.

Stavroula

Today the Faroes team visited the Open University at their central site in Milton Keynes. We met with a group of 20 tutors of Modern Languages who were interested in knowing more about the Language Box, in order to use it for their own teaching and file management purposes.

Dave opened the workshop by introducing the team; he then gave a presentation on the ‘evolution’ of the Language Box, showing how it was adapted through time to reflect the changing attitudes and expectations of those involved in the teaching of languages. After this Miguel took over, demonstrating the main features of the Language Box; his presentation was based on his own use of the repository for teaching, encouraging colleagues to think about similar potential usage. A hands-on session followed, in which all participants were given guidance to create profiles, browse resources and then upload their own. An interesting discussion session closed the day, covering technical as well as pedagogical issues.

Stavroula

Today I visited the University of Sussex, to talk about and demonstrate the Language Box. I met with a group of 13 colleagues teaching Modern Languages. It was very encouraging that they all found the time, despite their heavy teaching workloads, to come and learn about new ways of managing and finding resources using an online platform.

After a stimulating (I hope!) presentation, where I spoke about the Faroes project, and the background and purpose of the Language Box, the workshop attendants had the chance to try the repository for themselves, create profiles and upload materials. A lively discussion followed, where literally everybody agreed on the potential usefulness of the Language Box, highlighting the benefit of sharing resources for the whole community, and the convenience and intuitiveness of the repository as a way to store and manage one own’s resources.

Stavroula

David Millard presented the story of the Language Box at the 4th Annual e-learning symposium, of the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies, at the University of Southampton, 30 January, 2009.

 Dave ended the day on an exciting note by outlining the latest innovative developments on the Language Box site: including the ability to create collections of resources. This facility allows users to organise their resources in a way that is meaningful for them, and also allows for such collections to be shared and accessed by others. The teaching potential of this aspect was greatly appreciated by conference delegates, who blitzed Dave with questions!

Kate

Kate Borthwick and Miguel Arrebola attended the AULC (Association of University Language Centres) conference last week, on 8/9 January, which was held this year at the University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland.

We gave a presentation on the first day, 8th January, outlining the background and history of the Language Box teaching and learning repository, and giving a live demo of the key features of the site.  We also held a ‘hands-on’ session the next day, at which interest was so high that we were oversubscribed! Attendees to the conference were intrigued to see how the LB worked and interested to understand how they could use LB in their day-to-day practice. We were pleased to see that attendees found LB easy to navigate, create accounts and upload resources; and that they were keen to see how the site would develop further.

Several conference attendees mentioned informally that they found the approach we had taken with Language Box to be inspiring, innovative, and technically exciting; and they were keen to see the planned future developments (collections, profile pages and better general personal resource managment).  There was a great deal of interest in using the LB further, and a number of attendees plan to go back to their home institutions and encourage others to use the site and contribute to its development through feedback.

Kate

The Faroes project team held another workshop at the University of Southampton, on November 12th. This was attended by about 11 colleagues from within the School of Modern Languages, who had a chance to test out the Language Box and upload their own resources to the site.

 The session was a great success, with attendees impressed by the look of the Language Box and its user-friendliness. Everyone was able to get using the site very quickly and begin uploading resources that they use in their teaching.

Issues identified for further technical development were: a need for being able to batch upload files; manage collections of resources [both in progress]; some interface improvements, particularly to the profile/personal work area pages; and further improvements to the preview tool [ability to view Word docs - again, this is in progress].

More general issues raised were: copyright, in relation to the Language Box, and how the site might deal with learning objects. The team is currently working on a basic copyright guide which can advise users on this issue - this will not consititute legal advice, but we hope, will give users some useful pointers as to how they can proceed in publishing resources online. As regards learning objects, the Language Box can cope with any kind of file, so LOs can be put on the site. The site works on the basis that users will upload core resources and then add activities around them (which could then be added to by others, creating what might be called a home-grown LO), and this does not preclude the uploading of existing LOs. 

Kate