Download VLL demonstration See instructions at end of this page.
VLL is a multi-media database application that runs on a Windows 95/98/2000, XP and NT network and provides similar but extended functionality to a conventional electro-mechanical language laboratory.
Recordings stored as sound or video files can be easily imported and distributed to a class without the usual need for dubbing required by a conventional language laboratory. New material can easily added by using the recording facilities from the teacher's console directly. Material from the television or radio simply needs to be recorded conventionally and then transferred to the PC via a suitable cable.
Students can listen and record their replies whilst their teacher can monitor their progress. Messages can be exchanged between the students and the teacher either in real-time or by voice mail.
Student responses are stored on the central database, normally residing on the network server. These can be marked or reviewed at any time, they can even be copied to a portable for home marking. The Virtual Language Lab has a particularly easy to use interface, resembling a modern language laboratory in its controls and functionality. Even the tape can be seen moving from one reel to the other!
The language teacher who has previous experience of a laboratory should find themselves quickly at home with the interface and, with as little as one hour's familiarity, be comfortable with taking a class. Managing the Virtual Language Laboratory is so simple that no special staff are required to look after it, there are no tape machines to go wrong!
THE TEACHER'S VIEW
The above screen shot shows the instructor's console. This shows all the students who are using the system in various colours depending on the number of responses made. This allows the instructor to immediately target the students who are making poor progress. Clicking on any student displays the recordings that they have made as tape icons in the scrolling window on the right.
VLL captures all student responses and keeps them for as long as you want. This enables you to evaluate progress over long periods. You can ask VLL to display recordings made in any time period at all, so you can just as easily mark an exam from several weeks ago as monitor a live class. This also makes VLL ideal for open access by allowing you to review student progress at some time later than when the work was undertaken.
Note, because VLL requires no special hardware, it can run on any Windows 95/98/2000/XP/NT machine with a soundcard. This makes every such PC in your establishment a potential multi-media language console. You are not limited to a single room of PCs for which specialist hardware has been installed as with other commercially available systems (which are incidentally far more expensive because of that very hardware!)
Other teacher functions include: setting the title, importing new titles, wiping old titles, and setting the maximum recording time for the students.
Real-time monitoring of the students allows the teacher to eavesdrop on what any of the students are listening to or recording. A real-time conversation can then be held with the student being monitored. This facility requires the TCP/IP network protocol and full-duplex sound cards to be in each machine. This also allows the teacher to control any of the students' consoles via the panel shown below.
VLL has been reviewed in the Language Learning Journal for June 1999. Comments include:
Review of VLL by Alan Taylor of York 6th Form College
VLL was extensively tested at the Heart of England School in Balsall Common where live classroom situations gave rise to many improvements in the interface design. Darren Evetts from the Heart of England School says "Testing has shown that VLL has been readily adopted by both students and teacher. We could have paid for VLL with the maintenance payments alone for our current conventional system."
Out with the old, in with the new. The conventional system gets unceremoniously dumped to make way for the Keylink Virtual Language Lab at the Heart of England School.
VLL was first announced at BETT 98 at Olympia in January. Since then it has been demonstrated at the Language World at various locations, The ACCITT conference at Buckinghamshire College, and at the London Language Show at the Hammersmith Novotel.
Picture above shows Keylink at BETT in January 1998. Picture below shows Dr. Rob Lucas, Keylink's director, shows Kelvin Hopkins, the MP for Luton, and other dignitaries the Virtual Language Laboratory at the opening of Luton University's Language Centre on the 7th October 1998.
The demonstration requires Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT or XP, 10MB free space, a soundcard and a Super VGA monitor. Down load into new directory, run the VLL.EXE to decompress and then run SHOW.EXE. A more comprehensive demonstration on CD which includes a movie of a teacher and student using VLL can be obtained on request and is highly recommended, email us at keylink@dial.pipex.com