Originally, my plan was to write about serious issues regarding radical new underwear policies in Virginia. That's going to have to wait until another day, however, because I just got some news that is - at least for me - a great deal more satisfying that the fashion sensabilities (or lack thereof) of our northern neighbors.

For a little background information, I'm including the first two paragraphs of an email I sent to some of the bureaucrats here at UNC two weeks ago:

I have been working on a project that I consider to be of considerable importance to campus-wide efforts to integrate technology into academics as well as for encouraging a broader use of the CCI Laptop here at UNC. This past semester I began working with both a Spanish and French instructor in order to streamline the process by which beginning foreign language students submit pronunciation exercises to their teachers. In the past, the Romance Lanaguages department required students to purchases audio cassettes and then record the pronunciation assignment to tape, be it in one of the Tape Labs in Dey Hall or at home with an analog tape recorder. Obviously, this is a cumbersome ordeal, and instructors had several complaints: In addition to having to carry around 20 cassette tapes in their bags (or 40 if the TA was double teaching), instructors found evaluating the assignments to be extremely difficult and time consuming because of the constant fast-forwarding and rewinding required to both locate and playback student audio.

By incorporating the PALs (Portable Audio Labs) project into about 14 sections of introductory French and Spanish courses last semester , B. L., Dr. G. A., and I were able to simplify both recording and evaluation of the pronunciation assignments. Basically, students were given an inexpensive microphone and the opportunity to use their laptops to record their homework digitally. They used the shareware program WavePad to "tape", edit, and convert the assignment into an MP3 file, which the student could then upload to Blackboard directly. Once all the assignments were in, instructors were able to download the complete collection of MP3 files to their computers at once. The project was a complete success last year, and I anticipate the same for its use this semester. Additionally, I have received incredibly positive feedback from both students and instructors, nearly all of whom claim that, by using the CCI Laptop, WavePad, and Blackboard, they were able to save a great deal of time and concentrate more on the task at hand rather than the technology.

To make a long story short, I petitioned one of the UNC technology committees to consider including the Wavepad program - preloaded - on student laptops for the Fall 2005 semester. (This would be a big improvement of having to require students to download the software and install it on their own.) And today, I finally got word from one of my colleagues on the inside that the request had been approved and that the software will indeed be available for student use in the next academic year. I think what I'm most proud of, other than the tenacity it took to hammer this home, is the simple fact that such efforts will directly impact the UNC community's (students and faculty) use of (academic) technology.

Now, hopefully I can just get the funding and required retooling of the software in place before the mid-March deadline. Oh, yeah, and let's also hope students don't just use Wavepad to rip and convert CD tracks into mp3 format...