ELFE 3.0 Launched!

March 17th, 2008

By cborn

ELFE 3.0 Launched! Find out more information about ELFE 3.0 and how you can use it from the ELFE 3.0 webpage.

February is Discover Languages Month!

January 14th, 2008

ACTFL Announces National Student Video Podcast Contest to Celebrate Discover Languages Month!

Get your students involved in celebrating, educating, and communicating the value of language learning! This year the main focus of February as Discover Languages month is to encourage students to reflect on the value of learning languages and the impact it has had on their lives. They can express their views in a two-minute video and teachers can easily upload the video to enter their students in the contest. Students over 18 years of age can enter on their own. Read the details in the flyer and go to www.DiscoverLanguages.org for more details. Help spread the word by forwarding this message to other professional groups and friends of foreign languages--let's galvanize our young people to speak up for language learning!

To learn more, download the flyer or visit www.actflvideocontest.org.

New Language Features in Leopard, Mac OS 10.5

December 27th, 2007

By cborn

I have spent a lot of time on this OS yet, as I haven't yet upgraded myself. I've heard some rumblings of Leopard being a little hard to work with for Japanese, so I've been skeptical.

But it does boast some cool features! Check out this link for the full list of 300 + improvements over previous versions, but the most exciting for me is the integration of the Shogakuen dictionary right into the Dictionary.app program. That means that you will have the ability to highlight any word in Japanese - in any program - and pull up a dictionary definition. Pretty slick!

Language Technology at KFLC 2008

October 8th, 2007

By cborn

This will be the 61st year of the KFLC, an international academic conference that brings together researchers in language, literature, culture, and linguistics in the fields of Arabic, French, German, Hispanic, Italian, and Luso-Afro-Brazilian Studies, as well as Second Language Acquisition and Language Technology.

I have attached to this message the Call for Papers for this year's sessions, and I hope that you will all consider bringing your best work in Language Technology to Lexington to showcase for us.

This year we are making an increased effort to attract papers discussing technology as a tool for *literary, cultural, and linguistic* teaching and research, so I ask that you please broadly share this Call with your colleagues in the departments that you work with.

-----------------------------------

Dr. Mark Richard Lauersdorf
Associate Professor of Languages and Linguistics
Director of Language Technology
Department of Modern & Classical Languages
Department of Hispanic Studies
1055 Patterson Office Tower
University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0027, USA

phone: ++ 859.257.7101
fax: ++ 859.257.3743
e-mail: lauersdorf@uky.edu

Computer Fact or Fiction

February 28th, 2006

A nice little article with the answers to some common computer myths.

Computer Fact or Fiction

OS 10.4 Mail Text Encoding Fix

January 2nd, 2006

By cborn

The information below is copied from a post to the Apple Discussion Forums by Tom Gewecke.

With the system language set to English, Tiger Mail uses UTF-8 as the default encoding for outgoing mail for various languages that use non-Roman scripts. While this is fine for recipients using modern mail clients, it can result in unintelligible text on older systems, webmail, and cell phones. Suggested remedies for some specific cases where this problem can arise are as follows:

Japanese: The best encoding to use is ISO-2022-JP. Although this can be set manually for each message using Message > Text Encoding, that can be tedious and will often result in Subject lines still garbled. To set the default to this option, open Terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.mail NSPreferredMailCharset "ISO-2022-JP"

(Also in Apple KB)

Russian: The best encoding to use is KOI8-R. Unfortunately this cannot be set manually for each message, because it is grayed out in the menu in Message > Text Encoding. To set the default for this option, open Terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.mail NSPreferredMailCharset "KOI8-R"

Traditional Chinese: The best encoding is Big-5. This can be set manually for each message in Message > Text Encoding. To set the default for this option, open Terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.mail NSPreferredMailCharset "BIG5"

Simplified Chinese: The best encoding is GB-2312. This can be set manually for each message in Message > Text Encoding (where it is called EUC). To set the default for this option, open Terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.mail NSPreferredMailCharset "EUC-CN"

Korean: The best encoding is EUC-KR. This is however grayed out in Message > Text Encoding. To set the default for this option, open Terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.mail NSPreferredMailCharset "EUC-KR"

Note that there should be no problem if the system is set to the language in question. In this case, the default encoding for Mail is not UTF-8 but that indicated as the "best encoding" above. Also, using the terminal commands mentioned here does not change the encoding used by Mail for English.

CALICO 2005

May 21st, 2005

By cborn

Carly and Cynthia are attending this year's CALICO conference at Michigan State University. Watch here for a conference summary and Carly's notes about the sessions I attended. More information will be coming very soon!

Meanwhile, check out the conference website!

Opportunity to Develop a Project This Summer: Five-day Faculty Workshop at DePauw University

May 2nd, 2005

Each summer, Faculty Instructional Technology Support (FITS) at DePauw University hosts a five-day workshop for faculty in all disciplines. The 7th annual FITS summer workshop will be held May 31-June 3 and June 6, 2005. DePauw this year invites participation by faculty members from other campuses participating in MITC; three slots are available. MITC will provide travel support. If interested, contact Julianne Miranda to discuss your project idea. The deadline for application is May 15.

For more information, see:

http://www.midwest-itc.org/index.php/content/view/full/595

Workshops for Language Faculty

March 7th, 2005

By cborn

Workshops for over spring break for faculty who want to learn more about CAN8 and using technologies in the LDC classrooms! Check the Workshops section under Curricular Resources for FL Faculty for scheduling and registration information.

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Japanese Tools

March 2nd, 2005

In attempt to make this site even more useful for students, I'll be (slowly) adding pages focusing on each of the languages taught at Carleton College. Check back once in a while for updates.