I used to think that blogs, shareware and all of those kind of sites were a one sided affair, in that you just used them for what you wanted and put nothing back in.  However, I've seen the light, the big picture, the future, the end game or whatever you want to call it.

And this is where YOU come in!  It's all very well writing these blogs but to make such a site work requires reciprocation.  So this is my idea & I'd like you to get thinking & contributing;

It's a bit like word association but with features and functions for your SANAKO products.  I want people to be as creative as possible with the functions/features available & to think of all the different ways they can use them.

So...

... I say "Voice insert" (SANAKO Study 1200) and "Mark to Speak" (SANAKO Lab 300).  And then you tell me what you use it for e.g. Listen & repeat, Q&A, Consecutive interpretting

I say "Q&A" (SANAKO Lab 100), "Test - Response Recording" (SANAKO Lab 300) "Model Immitation" (SANAKO Study 1200) and you say...

Or we can do it the other way around. So, what it is you do with your students and what features/functions you use to get there.

Please tell me all the ways you use the different features on your products.  Because, if we all contribute, we can share ideas and learn something new and the "prophecy" becomes self-fulfilling!

SANAKO Lab 300 Collecting Evidence.pdf Check out the attached file for an easy to use guide for collecting those all important student recordings and other file types!

Most of my days are spent teaching customers and trying hard to get them to see and use the full potential of their SANAKO purchase.  But one thing that comes up time & time again are those old evils, money, time, and fear.  “If only our budget would allow for more …”, “the room is shared so we don’t get timetabled in”, “that person will never use it because…”So within a few minutes, I’ve seen that their purchase could be a bit of a white elephant and may not get a great deal of use. 

More often than not, my first response to these negative comments is; “which departments are using the lab?”  To which I usually hear, “MFL” or “Just us in languages”.  And herein lays the problem.  As far as I can see, the only limitations of a SANAKO solution are;
1 – Resources that people use/don’t use
2 – Imagination
3 - Confidence

Cross-Curricular Teaching
With our tradition in Languages, it could be easy to take sides and only offer solutions/ideas to those foreign speakers but then we’d be stopping short of helping the whole school and limiting such powerful tools. Who can benefit from this?  I’d say every department could. More departments means that the people with the money can see a better return on their investment and the SANAKO solution gets more use. How can this be achieved?  Well, to answer that, we need to know what the solution does and can do, hence the need for good quality end user training, which can then plant the seeds of imagination and possibilities as well as build confidence in the users skills.  

In essence our solutions provide a platform for learning, allowing for collaboration, material (resources) distribution and interaction and integration within the establishment’s environment.   With those features at your finger tips, you can apply them to all subjects.

Math, Art and Physical Education in the Lab?
So who’s going to use SANAKO with physical education?  That could be the teacher who perhaps films students and their sporting techniques and sends them out as mpegs to view and allow students to record their voices to comment on them.  Or through handheld devices gets the students to collect and collate data from track-side to look at performance levels. 

And Maths?  For starters, you could distribute spreadsheets and past papers to work on, or use a Test/Q&A to quiz students on their maths oral exams and verbal reasoning.  That’s all well and good but Art???  Today students, we’re going online to look at the work of Pablo Picasso and then I’m going to split you in to small groups and I’m going to record your discussions on the subject of Cubism which I will collect in and mark.

As I tell all of the attendees at my training sessions, it’s the BENEFITS of the features that we’re using to achieve our end results.  So, be imaginative with your lessons and resources, seize the time to learn about the product, share your knowledge and ideas not just within your department but across all subjects and get everyone involved in using a SANAKO solution. In return, what I’d like to ask is that you now contribute your own thoughts & ideas of how your SANAKO solutions can be used across the whole school/all departments.