History

TLTC was established in 2006 with start-up support from the College of Liberal Arts (CoLA) and Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services (LAITS).

The TLTC team has its roots in thirty years of University of Texas language instruction: in the Department of French and Italian, the Language Lab, and Liberal Arts Media Center.  The core team has worked together for over ten years to develop award-winning instructional technology projects.

TLTC exists, in part, to leverage lessons learned over ten years of developing language software for the Internet.  But TLTC also draws upon decades of general language tech experience and connects the University with language resource centers across the globe.

The core team of TLTC (Director Carl Blyth, Technical Director Eric Eubank, and Project Manager Karen Kelton) have been collaborating as a team since 1995.  Their first project was the CD-ROM to accompany the textbook Parallèles: Communication et culture, New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc.  The roles on the creation of this first project were well-defined, although the process was organic and all participated equally in conception and production.  Blyth was the executive producer and in charge of research and evaluation; Eubank provided technical expertise, multimedia design, and implementation; and Kelton was responsible for project coordination and pedagogical design.

This successful collaboration of academics and technologist continued with two more web-based learning tools: Tex's French Grammar, a comprehensive pedagogical reference grammar, and Français Interactif, a video-based first year French program.  In addition, Eubank worked with Professor Matthew Bailey to produce the award winning Cantar de mio Cid, a presentation of the Spanish epic poem in various multimedia formats.

But the history of TLTC goes back further: to the roots of language technology in previous University of Texas departments, the Language Laboratory and Liberal Arts Media Center.  TLTC staff have been involved with language tech since the audio-lingual era – i.e., the time of reel-to-reel tape decks in language laboratories, with students "listening and repeating." 

Technology has come a way since those days – first, the video revolution; then, the computer revolution; and now a revolution of hand-held devices – but the original emphasis on a language technology center has been revived.  And with that renewed language tech presence, TLTC looks forward to establishing contact with language technology centers, nation- and world-wide.

So in one sense, the earliest history of TLTC is now its future, even if the actual physical locale of the "laboratory" is largely the Internet itself.  TLTC staff looks forward to re-establishing a center for instructional language technology as a real presence on the University of Texas campus.