7.0473 CELIA Language Software D/B (Part I) (1/140)
Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Sun, 13 Feb 1994 19:43:02 EST
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 7, No. 0473. Sunday, 13 Feb 1994.
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 94 23:58:14 JST
From: trobb@ksuics.kyoto-su.ac.jp (Thomas Robb)
Subject: Announcing CELIA Language Software Database
COMPUTER ENHANCED LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION ARCHIVE (CELIA)
INTRODUCTION
WHAT is CELIA?
CELIA is an archive or storage space (like a library) of software for
Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). The software is either shareware
or freeware. Except for demos, commercially sold software cannot be archived
in CELIA. The software comes from you the users and developers of CALL
materials.
CELIA can be accessed by gopher-server at USA/michigan/Merit software archive
or by FTP at archive.umich.edu. Further detailed instructions on how to use
CELIA appear in the long document headed: HOW TO USE CELIA. The archive is
organized in a tree so that the first major choice is language, the next the
language learning activity (e.g. vocabulary, grammar, etc.), and last the
operating system under which the software runs. Software running under any
operating system, (MS-Dos, Windows, OS/2, Mac, Unix, Amiga, etc.) is accepted
for archiving. At present there are files for only MS-Dos and Mac in the
archive. The files may also be executable binary files OR text only ascii
files.
It is hoped that teachers will use CELIA to exchange software on an
international co-operative basis by uploading it to CELIA in order to cut
down development time and create more choices in CALL courses for language
learners. There are many software packages that allow teachers to author CALL
"exercises." These authored files are the teacher's copyright property (even
if the program needed to run them is a commercial product), and can be shared
free of charge with other teachers who also own the same authoring software.
Typically such files are often ascii files. Such "authored exercises," the
instructions to use such exercises, files to be printed as handouts to
students, etc., can all form part of material uploaded to CELIA.
WHO can use CELIA?
Anybody who has access to Internet. It is a free service. If teachers in your
local community do not have Internet access you may think of organizing local
funding so that they can access CELIA.
WHO runs CELIA?
CELIA is run and maintained by CELIA-L a special closed list created by
Anthea Tillyer as a TESL-L related activity. The co-owners of CELIA-L are
Anthea Tillyer ABTHC@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Lloyd Holliday L.Holliday@latrobe.edu.au
In effect the archive is currently staffed and run by:
Deborah Healey dhealey@oregon.uoregon.edu Macintosh
Lloyd Holliday L.Holliday@latrobe.edu.au MS-Dos/CELIA sites
Jeff Magoto jmagoto@oregon.uoregon.edu Macintosh
Fred Swartz fred.swartz@merit.edu Gopher/CELIA sites
Many other members made valuable contributions to the original discussion on
CAUSLI-L about setting up CELIA. Currently, the following members of CELIA-L
may also be contacted with offers of help:
Tom Robb trobb@KSUICS.KYOTO-SU.AC.JP TESL-L Management/Help
Jack Burston frn373b@VAXC.CC.MONASH.EDU.AU Calis/French
Julie Falsetti jefhc@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU MS-DOS
Janet Sutherland sutherland@VAX1.RZ.UNI-REGENSBURG.D400.DE
Tim Rushing RUSHING@WSUVM1 TESL-L Management
The management of CELIA cannot troubleshoot or answer questions about access
as each local network setup varies. USERS HAD BEST ASK THEIR LOCAL SYSTEMS OR
NETWORK MANAGERS IF THEY HAVE DIFFICULTIES. (Detailed help is provided to the
best of our ability in CELIA-HOW-TO.)
We need more long term committed VOLUNTEERS to take on bits of CELIA as it
grows. Contact any of us if you are able to help. You need not be a computer
scientist or network manager :), even some knowledge of email will be a big
plus. We need VOLUNTEERS to help with keeping the index00.txt files up to
date, checking that software is correctly compressed, uploading it into
appropriate directories, actively soliciting software for archiving, making
CELIA known at conferences, suggesting gopher links to other source material
useful to language teachers, etc. And we need more storage sites. For the
latter you need to be at a NETWORK SITE like a university computing service
with whom you have already liaised and from whom you already have received a
commitment to house a subdirectory branch of CELIA.
The HISTORY of CELIA
In mid-1993 a discussion about sharing CALL resources took place on TESLCA-L
and Anthea Tillyer decided the time was ripe to initiate this CALL project.
Anthea created the list CAUSLI-L with Lloyd Holliday as co-owner to discuss
setting up the project. Sometime in September when the name CELIA was
suggested CAUSLI-L became CELIA-L. This electronic committee debated many
issues involved. In October and November, Lloyd Holliday met Anthea Tillyer
in New York and Fred Swartz in Ann Arbor to discuss further practical issues
in setting up CELIA. Some of the decisions were taken as a result of these
discussions in which Fred's computer expertise was invaluable. Without his
ability to set up the gopher server and fill us in on the practical issues we
would not have been able to proceed.
The Macintosh side of the archive was begun with files from TESOL's CALL
Interest Section (CALL-IS) Macintosh Library. CELIA was a way to expand the
CALL-IS's service, which has been on a mail-a-disk basis since 1988.
The FUTURE of CELIA
Depends largely on YOU. The discussions on CELIA-L did include
representatives from LLTI-L who are interested largely in teaching languages
other than English. Although CELIA has begun as a TESL/TEFL/TESOL initiative,
users will see that provision has been made to include material on ALL
languages. Thus it is hoped that language teachers from other organizations
will offer to join CELIA-L to co-operate in creating the archive. CELIA-L is
not funded at present. Various groups who work on CELIA-L may have to look to
their own national and local funding bodies for funding to develop the parts
of CELIA-L they are most concerned about. This may be a particular type of
software, language or index of available software.
Although CELIA has been set up initially to run on a gopher-server, as WWW,
and other developments take place and become more universally available, it
is likely that CELIA may also get various platform-lifts. Nevertheless, CELIA
is probably a unique first in the world of Internet computing as it has
deliberately been set up to be a distributed archive appearing as one virtual
whole to the user even though not all the files are physically located in one
place. We intend to spread CELIA around to more sites than currently is the
case, but this depends on more folk with universities and computing network
managers who will set up CELIA storage sites in co-operation with us.
Eventually we hope, entry to the top level of CELIA will be accessible from
at least one gopher server on each continent of the world that will lead to
subdirectories that are managed and stored in many different locations around
the world. CELIA is truly an effort in worldwide democratic co-operation.
Without various of us at different levels: software creators, users,
students, teachers, uploaders, archivists from different language groups and
countries, etc., creating and managing various bits of CELIA, she doesn't
exist. Please become part of this initiative to foster a multilingual and
multi-cultural world through language learning
Lloyd Holliday
for CELIA-L Management
2 February 1994
(see also CELIA-HOW-TO)
You are encouraged to post this message to any relevant LISTS or BBS.