College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University

New resource

Renovations allow Department of World Languages and Cultures to establish expanded resource center.
In the old Department of World Languages and Cultures resource room there was hardly a spare square inch of space that wasn't utilized.

In fact you could probably call that old facility a bit overcrowded.

That's something you can't say about the department's newly expanded Language Studies Resource Center (LSRC). The wide-open facility is the primary resource for students enrolled in foreign languages classes who seek access to audio, video, textual and electronic materials in support of their language studies.

Located on the third floor of Pearson Hall, the LSRC is more than twice the size of the old facility. The new space was established with the recent renovations to Pearson Hall and includes banks of computers and televisions. The LSRC has laptops available for students to use when they are viewing videos.

It also serves as the instructional technology hub of the Department of World Languages and Cultures, providing specialized media resources and support for language and culture classes throughout Pearson Hall.

While language students can watch videos, DVDs or live satellite television in the language they are studying or use Podcasts for their classes, the new space is much more than just a technology center.

"It's more of a social and gathering space for our students," said Julio Rodriguez, the LSRC director. "We expect students to interact socially and use the languages they are learning."

Open last January, the facility has used the expanded space to separate the video viewing area from the computer lab section.

"Those two areas didn't mix," Rodriguez says. "We've arranged the computers against the wall so it's not so much ‘in your face.' It's a little bit different than your typical computer lab."

The facility is also home to the Molas exhibit. Molas are an artistic tradition of the Cunas in Panama, which are created by hand using different colored fabrics.

The exhibit was created by Spanish 201 students taught by Eduardo Garcia. The class studied the creation of the Molas and created their own versions on paper to represent individual qualities. Each student selected an animal based on its symbolism as well as positive and negative attributes.

A recorded explanation of what the students did is available through Podcasts in both English and Spanish.

The LSRC has several other projects it is working on including a pilot test of adding voice capabilities to WebCT, a course management system that has been in use at Iowa State since 1998. Some of the additions to WebCT include voice e-mail, threaded voice boards, live voice chat and a voice recorder.

Rodriguez says his office is also working to enhance the quality of instruction by bringing effective and relevant technologies into the classrooms where languages and cultures are taught, creating richer learning experiences for language learners.

"We're working on bringing in the right type of technology for language learning and provide more access to this type of technology to the students than they would have elsewhere," he said.