| 1 • How I Got into All This | last modified: |
Goethezitat (leicht geändert): "Habe nun, ach! Technologie, Philologie und Literatur, und leider auch Javascript durchaus studiert mit heißem Bemühen."
1983: ACTFL OPI training AND negotiated first computer for PSU FLL!! (=proficiency-oriented pedagogy AND computer-assisted language instruction (CALI, CALL, "TALI / TALL"??)
A time of language labs - but then the Walkman Revolution
But before that:
~1958 tried to teach myself German, Russian, Japanese (didn't work)
1962 built my first computer (it could play tic-tac-toe - and only that)
1963-65 German classes at Grants Pass High School (Oregon)
1965-69 German major (literature, of course) in college
1979 PhD in German (literature, of course)
1978 to PSU: started to hear about "proficiency" from the then departmental chair, Lou Elteto, who was early into computers
1983: Led effort to acquire my department's first computer: A Victor 9000 ($5000 in 1983 money1): 284K internal memory, two 284K disk drives, and a tiny screen - but it also had a special character font generator, a remappable keyboard, and - wonder of wonders! - an AD/DA (analog-digital/digital-analog) audio capability. I experimented with sound on it and wrote an article for the CALICO Journal.
Around the same time: use of Apple IIs in language lab, including an excellent but underappreciated program called "Juegos Communicativos"
1988 publication of "Wie, bitte? Introductory German for Proficiency", including a software package; much DTP and other production brought to PSU (~$55, 000)