Computers in Teaching, Research, and Departmental Administration

Abstract

The recent addition of microcomputers to the administrative offices and language laboratory in our department has caused genuine excitement. As chairman of the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Toledo, I have observed that they have added an important dimension to our abilities as teachers; in research they have brought about efficiency of time and effort that has led to increased productivity; and in the office, microcomputers have enabled our staff to accomplish much more than we could have by adding more personnel. Since our first involvement with computers some six years ago, the department has evolved quickly from word processing on mainframe terminals owned by our College of Business to a broad range of applications on both micro and mainframe computers. One of the most pleasant surprises is that this evolution has cost little in departmental funds for the over $35,000 worth of equipment that we now have at our disposal. The key has been our willingness to collaborate with other departments, programs, and colleges on campus. During the summer of 1985, we acquired seven Apple IIe systems, five ITT-Xtra systems (which are IBM compatible), one Imagewriter and one Epson FX-80 + printer. In the fall, we added two more IIe's with dual disk drives and two additional Imagewriter printers. All of these are housed in our language laboratory. This spring we will add a Gandalf modem, for file transfers with the mainframe, and a Macintosh. Next to the laboratory we maintain a small terminal-cluster room with a mini-controller and three terminals through which we connect with the university's NAS 6660 mainframe. Additional terminals feeding from the controller are located in the offices of the departments of Communications, English, and Foreign Languages, all of which share the same floor of our building. In addition to the terminal, there are two Apple IIe systems in the office of the Department of Foreign Languages. Eighty percent of the Spanish faculty in our department have purchased computers for home use. Two colleagues have IIe systems, one a IIc, and I own complete IIe and ITT-Xtra systems with printers and a modem. For word processing, we frequently use APPLEWORKS, APPLEWRITER, GUTERNBERG JR., GUTERNBERG SR., NOTA BENE, PCWRITE, and WORD PERFECT. To produce instructional materials, we rely on DASHER and PRACTICANDO ESPANOL. To help us track faculty schedules, our department's majors, and key items on our teacher evaluation instrument, we use PFS's FILE, REPORT, GRAPH, and CHARTMASTER. For searching databases such as the MLA International Bibliography, we depend on ASCII EXPRESS PRO, CROSSTALK, and PC-TALK. In addition, we use micros for software review and for managing faculty salaries. To coordinate an annual Foreign Language Day that attracts over three thousand high school students from this area to our campus each spring and to tally the final results for it, the department uses an extensive database program, SPIRES (the Stanford Public Information Retrieval System), on the mainframe. We maintain several mailing lists on it to keep in contact with over 230 language teachers in northwe t Ohio and southeast Michigan, and we use the mainframe for telecommunications via BITNET (Because It's Time Network) with colleagues in the United States, France, and Spain. By combining the efforts of the departments of Communications, English, and Foreign Languages, we made a convincing case for funding the mainframe connections. Our department provided a room near the language laboratory to house the equipment, a d the university's administration was more than willing to fill the needs of three departments with one budget allocation. Four of the Apple IIe systems and three printers are in the laboratory because we were willing to