Jack Burston, Editor
Mike Ledgerwood Associate Editor

The Fourth Edition of the IALLT Language Center Design Kit contains the following modules.

Introduction. This module contains a discussion of the kit in general, a summary and overview of the kit, and a concluding section where the key questions lab/center directors need to have answered are posed. The questions will be put on a separate page for directors to copy and keep on their desk or attached to their computers, reminding them of the absolutely essential issues that must be addressed in any center design or redesign.

Module One: How to Determine and Decide the Needs of a New Center or a Newly Redesigned One. This module, written by Mikle D. Ledgerwood, State University of New York at Stony Brook, gives the whole volume its roots and underpinning. It advances the discussion begun in the introduction to the kit and its thirty questions. Here we look at types of decisions to be made, the people who must make the decisions, and the process of decision-making as well as giving advice on how to determine needs.

Module Two: Crucial Considerations in Designing a New Center. The next two modules should be seen as an indivisible unit. They represent two different approaches to giving the first answers to the questions posed in the introduction and first module. In Module Two, Cynthia Jorth of California State University at Chico does a great job of giving an overview of the process of designing a Center or Lab. As a successful director who has overseen a recent redesign and is now working with other Cal State campuses and the Tandberg company on a new redesign, she has had a great deal of experience with center design. Her module gives a very clear overview of the basic issues of designing a center including different usage spaces and differing equipment demands and needs.

Module Three: Additional Important Considerations in Designing a New Center. Patricia Miller of California State University at Northridge presents a longer answer to questions about what is needed in center design in this module. She alludes to the previous version of the LCDK as well as gives photographs and blueprints of her own Center's redesign, a forced and difficult redesign, since her University was severely damaged by an earthquake. In addition she details specific issues dealing with electrical, networking, furnishing and discusses layout needs for better lab security and for access for the disabled. This module is one new center directors will want to refer to repeatedly. It includes so many of the "nuts and bolts" issues and problems that have to be addressed in any design or redesign that many readers will want to copy this and place it on the top of their desk!

Module Four: Special Needs and Usages to be Considered in Designing a New Center. Barbara Sawhill of Oberlin College has undertaken the task of considering all of the special spaces Language Centers need outside of the basic labs or classrooms. She mentions studios, lounges, and other special needs areas, giving tips on design and needs. One of her most interesting sections and one of great interest to all center/lab directors reading this module is the section where she describes new wireless computer labs. She also reiterates many of the lessons learned from the preceding two modules and challenges her readers to consider parts of the work of Language Centers they may have forgotten.

Module Five: Turn-key Labs/Centers and Their Companies, Advantages and Disadvantages. Mikle D. Ledgerwood, State University of New York at Stony Brook and John Huy, formerly of the University of Kansas and ASC Direct, Inc. worked on this module together. John gave Mike a great deal of advice for this module, especially concerning some of the issues associated with turn-key facilities. Using John's knowledge, Mike wrote a short overview of the issues, questions, and reasons a turn-key or pre-packaged center should be considered. Since Mike is not much of a proponent of turn-key facilities and has never included many features from turn-key companies in his Center, John was ideal to buttress Mike's comments and views with his own. John has had a Sony lab at the University of Kansas, worked for ASC, and is very knowledgeable about Tandberg's and CAN-8's products. Since he designed parts of his center at Kansas as well as had turn-key facilities, he has been on both sides of the turn-key question. This gives this module added credibility.

Module Six: Different Centers for Different Needs. LeeAnn Stone, formerly Director of the Humanities Instructional Resource Center of the University of California, Irvine, is now a consultant for the Houghton-Mifflin/IALLT/ACTFL workshops on using technology for effective language learning. LeeAnn has been active in the field of Language Centers for quite some time and has consulted all over the United States. She has used her contacts to give us a summary of seven language centers/facilities in this module. She worked to come up with a wide variety of facilities for language learning and succeeded admirably. She has universities, colleges, private and public institutions, and even a charter school equivalent. New and continuing directors will have a chance to "visit" these centers in some depth, something which many will find very useful since they would likely not be able to visit them in person. This module will allow them to consider questions of usage, management, and pedagogy as well as design. Studying it carefully will further the understanding all center directors need to complete an effective and successful design.

Module Seven: The Future and its Needs: Trying to Anticipate in Designing New Centers. In the last module Andrew Ross of Brown University has taken on the unenviable task of trying to predict the future. With good humor he gives his own insights about what he sees as the future of technology and language learning over the next few years, highlighting changes in the Internet and wireless communication. He also gives some of the insights of Otmar Foelsche who is director of the LLTI listserv group and Director of the Humanities Resource Center at Dartmouth College. Between the two of them they present a compelling case for their vision of how things will change (and not change). It is hoped that the picture they draw will help all lab directors in their plans for the future.

Glossary: Ursula Williams, Derek Roff, Mikle Ledgerwood and Jack Burston provide a list of terms for the module.

Bibliography and Resources: In this bibliography we give LCDK authors' cited works again. In addition we also provide a short list of some other useful resources, including a few generic URLs.

Miscellaneous Documents and Photos: This is a miscellany of items. In the Documents section, there is a sample price list since one of the questions Directors always get asked is, "can you give me a ballpark estimate for X?" While this price list makes no claims to being up-to-date or being exhaustive, it will at least give directors the beginnings of an answer to this question. Please notice that this list can also serve as the beginning of an equipment list. There are numerous other documents and layout sketches. In the Photos section is a collection of photos from Patricia Miller's Center at California State University at Northridge. All of these materials were supplied by Patricia Miller. Since pictures are often worth more than thousands of words, it is hoped that these sample materials will add to the words of the kit commensurately.

Other Non-Textual Materials: The Kit includes a few pages from the Sony Corporation Language Learning Systems Planning . We hope users of the kit will take advantage of these pages and then be inspired to make their own graphing paper sketches and design cut-outs to go onto the graphing paper. For the full kit and kits from other companies such as Tandberg and ASC, please contact vendors from these companies directly.