[Dcmosls] Mango Languages Trial

[Charles O'Bryan]

Greetings to all,

My how time flies when....  We have been working on access issues with Mango Languages (an online language acquisition program) for several months,  and here is the scoop.  Please provide the following information if you are interested in a Mango languages trial.  You will need to provide the first and last name of students and staff needing access.  If an entire district needs access, so be it.  The Mango IT guys want the names so that a custom ID and password can be sent out.  Each lesson on Mango is progressive and personal to some extent.  It is a bit unwieldy to get names, but that is what is required.  The list can just be that: a list of names.  It does not need to be in spreadsheet form.

I will be the interface between Mango and you to make things easy.  Just send me a word document with your district or school name in the header, your name and then the first and last name of students .  As soon as these get to me I will have the IT folks at Mango assign access.  Please advise users that there will be a pre-survey, mid-April use and end of May survey to gain information about student and staff perceptions of the product.  Each survey should take no more than (3) minutes.  The hope is that the online program can be tailored to support the language classes in general and the NYS language Regents Exams in particular.  Access should be available through the end of June, 2010.

A recent question from a principal is as follows:

I have just received a question requiring a bit of background information on Mango Languages.

Instead of my trying to explain the details, please refer to their homepage and associated links:
http://www.mangolanguages.com/main/learn

We in NYS do not currently have a cost effective method of reinforcing language acquisition, nor of offering alternative languages to our students.  I met with Mango Languages a year or so ago at a major conference and liked what I saw.  A handful of school library directors from around the state then participated in a focus group with them to see if a conversation could be established.  They decided to work with us and would like to tailor their language programs to meet our needs in the classroom and in districts.  We are just at the beginning stages here in the conversation. 

They have had great success in public libraries but I want to see them in our schools.  Normal database trials are usually about 30-days in length; because they want to actually re-tool their product to better reflect our needs we have worked to get a lengthier trial and will need to collect some data along the way.  Let me know what you think and run it by your language teachers as well.

Thanks--the trial is available as soon as you provide me with names,

Chuck



Charles O'Bryan
School Library System, Coordinator
DCMO BOCES
6678 County Road 32
Norwich, NY  13815

Tel: 607.335.1371
Fax: 607.336.6518To all,