Language Resources

Policies and Procedures for Instructors & TAs using the Little labs

 
Keys, alarms, responsibility
Reporting problems; the email list
Preparing the lab for use
Planning your lab class
Leaving the lab
Printing and Computer ecology 
Software in the Little Language Lab
Using the Instructor Station
Judy Shoaf 392-2112 (home 371-7149), jshoaf@clas.ufl.edu
CLASnet 846-1990, consult@clas.ufl.edu

Keys, alarm, and responsibility

You will be given a key to the lab, which you should return to Judy Shoaf in 1341 Turlington (language lab) at the end of the term (or sooner if requested). The key opens both Little 225 and 215 BUT each room has its own alarm code.

The keys are issued by number and you are responsible for your key. Do not lend it to anyone. If someone has a legitimate need for a key, have them contact Judy.

Check the door handle as you leave. The door can be set (using the key) so that it will open from the outside or only from the inside. Be sure the room is locked tight when you leave.

DO NOT leave students unsupervised in the room; students who arrive for the next class should wait for their instructor outside the room.

The classroom is equipped with an alarm. If the alarm is beeping when you enter the room, it needs to be disarmed by punching in the appropriate code. When you leave the room and lock it up, SET the alarm. To set it, stand inside the room with the door closed and punch in the code. Wait until the beeping begins; if there is no beeping, try again. Once the beeping begins, you have 30 seconds to turn off the lights and leave.

When the alarm goes off, the campus police are alerted. If the alarm is triggered accidentally, please call them to let them know it's a false alarm (2-1111).

Reporting problems and communicating in general

When you receive your key, you will be added to the language-lab email list, which includes all the instructors and also the CLASnet personnel  responsible for the lab, and Judy Shoaf.

Messages posted to the address language-lab@clas.ufl.edu will reach everyone on the list. If you are encountering a problem with software or hardware, temperature, etc. that others need to be aware of, or if the printer is out of paper, please post this message to the list.

Inevitably there will be glitches with the equipment and software. To be frank, we have to rely on the lab users to "test" our software installations fully-to be sure, for example, that 25 students can access a web site or record their voices at the same time. Please always let us know right away if a particular program is malfunctioning! You can also call the lab director at 2-2112 or Maureen Busby at 6- 1990.

Planning your syllabus for the lab

Only CLASnet or Language Learning Center personnel are permitted or able to alter the lab computers (add/remove software, change certain settings). They must be contacted if you have a requirement you feel is necessary.

Obviously, legal, financial, and technical reasons do not allow us to provide every language teacher with the ideal interface. We do our best to avoid conflicts among programs and to provide timely help when such conflicts do occur. When a class needs software or hardware which is not available in the lab, we would encourage the instructor to look for other campus facilities which do offer that particular program or equipment. The director may be able to assist an instructor in locating the appropriate lab.

If a program runs on your office computer it may not run the same way in the lab. It is always good to test  the student software, fonts, etc.  in the lab in advance of the class in which students will be using it, and to notify us if there is a problem so that it can be rectified right away.

If you have made a webpage that you would like students to be able to access quickly from the browser's lab  home page, send the URL to Judy Shoaf,  jshoaf@clas.ufl.edu. She will link it to your course name in the schedule on the home page. If you prefer, you can request modifications of the "multimedia language links" pages accessed from the lab home page.

If the nature of the course requires students to create or download files, they should save them on the desktop and delete them at the end of class. If the instructor wishes to "collect" the work, the files can be saved on the shared (crossroads) directory. The instructor should look for the main folder for the language (English, German, etc.) and create a subfolder or set of them (German1125 with subfolders Sept. 10 and Sept. 17, for example). Crossroads is accessible from all computers in the Language Learning Center labs, both in Little and in Turlington.

Class preparation

Everyone who uses the lab needs a GatorLink account before coming to class. Everyone logs into the computers using the Gatorlink userid and password (the same one students use for ISIS).

Personal profiles in the lab are associated with the person's userid but also with a particular computer. A student should sit in the same computer each time. It will remember that user's settings for keyboards, bookmarks, etc. and bring them up when the user logs in.

Announce and enforce a no-food-or-beverages policy.

Please see that students do not attempt to install their own software or download software on the computers, or to copy software from the computer. We have only limited licenses for most of the materials in the lab.

Also, ask the students to avoid printing unnecessarily (see "Printing and Computer Ecology Issues" below). If they are working on drafts of a paper, consider having them submit the draft as an electronic file instead of a printed document.

If you wish to leave personal materials (books, CDs) in the lab for your students to consult, or simply as a convenience until the next class, you are welcome to do so at your own risk. Label the item as your own property and use the shelves at the instructor station.

The tables are mobile and you are welcome to rearrange them to suit the needs of your class.

Leaving the lab

The computers should NOT be simply turned off. The user should click on the "Start" menu and choose "Restart" to turn off the computer. If the computer says "Install updates and shut down," that is the proper choice. Often updates are necessary for smoothly running programs.

The door should be locked at the end of the class unless the instructor for the next period is already in the room.

Do not leave students (your own or those coming in for the next class) in the room without an instructor, whether the door is fully or partly locked.

Be aware of the needs of the next instructor using the room. He or she may need access to the instructor station to prepare materials. If you need to discuss the day's work with students after the end of class, move to one of the tables.

End of class checklist:

Printing and computer ecology issues.

With the ripe opportunity to access a gigantic library of information on all subjects via the Web, and the equally enchanting possibility of creating laser-printed documents that are camera-ready and "perfect," it may seem obvious that writing one paper requires printing out several books' worth of reference documents and a dozen ever more refined copies of the final draft. This is a BAD way to use the technology. Please do NOT print whole websites, long texts, or multiple copies of your papers.

The prime directive: Use electronic instead of hard copies. Why?

  1. Electronic copies, whether of a web page or in wordprocessed form, are searchable, printed copies less so.
  2. Electronic copies can be edited and annotated-for example, 5 web pages from with items from the library be turned into one 5-item bibliography. You can't cut and paste a hard copy into an electronic document (for example, your final paper), but you CAN cut and paste an electronic copy into a paper, report, bibliography. So: instead of printing the document out, save it to diskette for future use.
  3. Electronic copies contain more information than hard copies-for example, color images can be saved, and links to other web pages can be saved along with the addresses. If you print a web page instead of saving it as a file, you only get the tip of the iceberg!

Software in the Little Hall Labs