Inside a graduate-level Language Acquisition and Language Arts Methods course that is part of Pepperdine University’s M.A. in Education and/or Teaching Credential degree program, an innovative web-based software platform called LessonLab is being utilized to create video-case instructional tools for pre-service K-12 teachers.

Basically, students are analyzing the theories and practices of language acquisition and language arts instruction by viewing videotaped Los Angeles Unified School District elementary school classrooms. The LessonLab authoring tools help to create an unprecedented interactive online learning environment structured around the videotapes.

As noted on the company’s web site, "LessonLab’s technology consists of an integrated platform for creating and delivering case-based content in an interactive format over the web. This technology incorporates a synergistic mix of streaming video, user discussions, supplemental materials, expert commentary and personal learning tools to create an enriching professional development experience."

Video cases are filmed by LessonLab or by their clients, typically in a very basic fashion to capture the realities of any particular class. A LessonLab Builderä software component is used for transcribing and time coding videos for subtitling and search capabilities. A LessonLab Viewerä software component is the core interface through which end users work collaboratively with lessons that are stored inside digital libraries.

At the present time, primarily teacher educators from professional development organizations and school districts from around the country have been utilizing the LessonLab web-based platform as a supplementary face-to-face instructional tool. The company is actually an application service provider (ASP), whereby the software and videos are hosted on LessonLab servers and streamed to end-users. However, clients with the right infrastructure can house their own digital libraries of video cases, and end-users with low bandwidth can have videos put on CD-ROM. In all these models the video cases are integrated with the web-based LessonLab platform.

Sue Talley, lecturer for the Pepperdine Graduate school of Education and Psychology, says that LessonLab web has thus far been in use over four terms inside as many as eight sections of the Language Acquisition and Language Arts Methods course per term.

"LessonLab gives us the only chance to really have a non-intrusive bird’s-eye view of a classroom," says Talley. "There is no way that you can have 20 to 25 students all observe the same class. So this is a real advantage in that they are all observing the same lesson and can discuss elements of that lesson (both online in a discussion forum and also in face-to-face meetings)."

LessonLab was founded in 1998 and is the brainchild of Chairman and CEO James Stigler, who is also a University of California-Los Angeles Professor of Psychology. Stigler and a team of researchers and developers are currently conducting the TIMSS-R Video Study, which is part of the U.S. Department of Education-funded Third International Mathematics and Science Study.

www.lessonlab.com