While most of us here on campus will be dutifully finiishing finals or packing up to go home, there is something truly breathtaking happening in May in Moscow. I am referring, of course, the finals of the Eurovision 2009 Song Contest that will be happening on May 16 2009.

The CILC will be hosting a Eurovision Finals Viewing in Peters 327 on Saturday May 16. Time to be announced. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, check out the conversations that are happening on the Ethnomusicology 210 blog about Eurovision. Feel free to comment here, or there.

Ne’ertheless this is a summer of endings and beginnings here on the 3rd floor of Peters Hall.

First, the beginnings:

• Language placement tests in French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish will be available online as of July 14 (and not sooner…sorry). Check here for further details

• we are in the process of installing 24 brandy spandy new intel imacs that (fingers crossed) will be running OSX and XP. Stay tuned for further developments.

• on the Windows side we will be running World of Warcraft (UK version) This will allow access to servers in Europe and a completely new spin on language immersion and technology. We owe this idea to our good friend Todd Bryant at Dickinson College who has been using WoW in his introductory German classes for many semesters now. (Check out his article on this here)

• we will be exploring the use of Second Life for language immersion as well. To that end, if you are a student here and have experience in SL and speak a second language, leave a message below or email us: languages@oberlin.edu. We have a small grant that can pay for student assistance as we explore this possibility.

• More new toys for check out at the desk: we will have flip video cameras for student and faculty use (to be checked out at the desk). The flips store up to one hour of video, and then through a USB connector can easily download the footage to the computer of your choice… Digital (still image cameras) will also be available for check out. We still have a couple of mini DV video cameras and tripods and lavalier wireless mikes too.

•Toys for faculty: the lab now has a few video iPods and one iPod Touch to loan out on a limited basis, as well as the handy cable that allows one to connect the ipod to a TV monitor. Perhaps more exciting still is that the CILC has acquired a Verizon wireless USB card for faculty and staff who travel to conferences with a laptop and need wireless internet access. This card can be reserved via Barbara.

And now the endings:

This summer we say goodbye to a good friend and colleague, Ryan, who left the CILC and the position of Educational Technology Specialist for a similarly-titled job at UC-San Francisco’s Center for Instructional Technology. Ryan will be responsible for training the UCSF faculty in the finer points of Moodle .

The birdies, fishies and all of us here in the CILC already miss him. Among other things, it’s too dang quiet here without him and that…that…music.

When a job posting for the ETS position is finalized, you can check the Oberlin College Human Resources website for details. These’ll be big shoes to fill, indeed, but we will welcome applications from dedicated, somewhat wacky (it helps, trust me) educators interested in exploring how technology can enhance language instruction.

New broadcasts will be uploaded every Sunday.

If you have questions, please leave a comment below!

See? It has to be official! They have their own page on Wikipedia!

Pirate Speak Translator

It might be a stretch, but it might also be Oakland Raiders day too….