| XpressLab
provides easy-to-use tools that teachers need to create customized exercises and tests based on their classroom
or online lessons.
Learning materials become more meaningful
when they can be linked directly with what has been taught in class.
Unlike ready-made software, XpressLab is designed to allow you to
create your own exercises and tests so that content can directly
support your course curriculum. Teachers maintain ownership and
exclusive rights to tests and exercises they create. Our service
provides the tools needed for creating and distributing teacher
resources to students as
well as the tools needed by students to access
those resources via the Internet.
Internet-based
teaching and learning resources extend the classroom and
provide flexibility to teachers and students.
Internet-based resources that
reinforce face-to-face lessons extend teaching and learning beyond the
walls of the classroom. Students can access practice tests and
activities from any networked computer and teachers can mark tests and
monitor activities from their office or home.
XpressLab minimizes the technical barriers that often
make it difficult for teachers to integrate technology into their
teaching program.
Through pilot studies, we have
learned that language teachers would like to be able to use
technology to enhance their students' language learning. However, it
is typically the case that as software becomes more interactive and
network-based, the level of technical support required by teachers
increases. This is particularly true when language learning systems
are installed and managed on local school networks. We, along with
teachers, recognize that technical support staff are spread thinly
and therefore cannot be
|
readily
available to assist individual teachers when the need arises.
Furthermore, many language departments do not have a dedicated
technical support person to maintain highly interactive language
software on the network. We work with local technical personnel to
augment the services they already provide to language
teachers. XpressLab is a
portal for language teachers and students.
When teachers and students log-in to XpressLab, all resources either created by them or
assigned to them are organized and displayed in one easy-to-use location. For students, one log-in will retrieve and display all exercises
and tests for the course or courses they are taking. When teachers log-in,
resources that have been created for one or more courses are presented in a
familiar structure.
XpressLab is
an effective strategy for delivering
advanced
technology to language teachers and students.
XpressLab offers variety in the
features for engaging students in
communicative activities. Explore this site
to learn more about how it can help you and your students. |
My name is Dr. Janet Flewelling, President of NetSoftware Inc.,
a software company
established to provide language teachers
with an easy way
to reinforce and assess oral language skills via the Internet and to
provide online instructors with a means of adding an oral component to
their courses. This service has evolved from research that I started
in 1999 on the value of integrating technology into second and
foreign language programs. The following are key points that summarize the
features of our XpressLab service: