The Yamada Language Center's latest addition to its suite of teaching tools adds a simple multimedia dimension to the classroom, and it can be used in conjunction with Blackboard

Last January the Yamada Language Center (YLC) introduced the latest in its suite of web-based teaching tools, Amiga LiveChat.

The new application was created for the YLC and the University of Oregon by Jim Duber of duber.com
(http://duber.com/), thanks to generous grants from the UO Ed Tech Fund (see article on page 9) and the Northwest Academic Computing Consortium (NWACC).

Two versions of Amiga LiveChat are currently available. One is a plug-in for the Blackboard course management system, and the other is a standalone version. The Blackboard version is a "building block" compiled by Computing Center streaming media specialist Tony Kay and is for UO use only. The standalone version is designed more specifically as a language tutoring tool.

Amiga is Flash-based and may be used on any modern web browser. It functions equally well on either Mac OS X or Windows 2000.

Among Amiga's strong points are the fact that it's Unicode-compliant (which means it works with any foreign language character set available on a user's computer), it's ad-free, and it has rather modest hardware and system requirements (for example, the audio works fine over 56K modem). And, of course, Amiga affords the flexibility of distance learning, freeing instructor and students to work almost anywhere, anytime, and providing a "virtual community" where they can interact with each other online.

Among the first UO faculty members to try the new software is career counselor and PODS (Professional Outreach and Development Services) coordinator Kassia Dellabough, who immediately recognized Amiga's value as a teaching tool and decided to experiment with it when it was released last term.

An intrepid pioneer in incorporating technology into her teaching methods, Kassia was among the first to use Blackboard when it became available at the UO in 1997, and she found the Blackboard Amiga plug-in particularly useful for her Art and Human Values course. Because this course is entirely online, Kassia greatly appreciated Amiga's one-on-one video interface--particularly when she gave students sensitive feedback on their assignments.

Kassia also appreciated the fact that this "baby video conferencing tool," as she likes to call it, is so easy to use. The technology is simple, requiring only a microphone and/or webcam (making it virtually plug-and-play for a Mac), and the Amiga template provides a functional, consistent, user-friendly workspace. After testing the waters, Kassia plans to use Amiga more regularly this term, both for her online class and for long-distance career advising through the PODS office.

Although Amiga LiveChat is ready to use in its present incarnation, Yamada's development team is continuing to enhance the tool's capabilities. Among other improvements, they anticipate being able to double Amiga's chat capability, enabling four-way chats later this year.

A detailed Amiga instruction manual complete with hardware and software requirements, chat room setup instructions, and answers to frequently asked questions, is available online at http://babel.uoregon.edu/amiga/

Amiga is freely available to all UO faculty who are interested in incorporating a web-based multimedia component into their coursework. For more information, contact the UO Yamada Language Center (541-346-4011, ylchelp@uoregon.edu ).