Dennie Hoopingarner

I work at Michigan State University. My split appointment has me at two centers. At CLEAR, the Center for Language Education And Research, I'm the Associate Director for Technology Implementation. I'm also the Director of the Language Learning Center.

I've given a lot of presentations, and I'm a member of a several professional organizations, including CALICO, IALLT, CLTA, and MFLA.

My main professional interest is in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). I'm especially interested in courseware design and development. I've used many different development tools throughout my career, including Toolbook, Visual Basic, Hypercard, Director, Metacard, and Flash. Nowadays, I develop mainly for delivery over the web. For most of my current projects, I use Flash and Dreamweaver on the client side, and PHP/mySQL on the server side. I'm still involved in some CD-ROM based projects, too.

We're working on some innovative uses of web-based software for language learning. The Rich Internet Applications initiative will produce new tools and technologies over the course of CLEAR's current funding cycle.

One of my most successful projects has been the Game-O-Matic. Many people have used it to create their own web-based activities for language practice. I've developed a successor to the GOM, called SMILE. It overcomes many shortcomings of the GOM, and has a lot more features, including the function to report students' activity to the teacher. The program is free for all non-commercial use. You can access the program here: http://smile.clear.msu.edu/.

The "Holy Grail" of web-based speaking practice is the ability to record your voice and play it back, all in a web page. There are a few commercial options available, but they're quite expensive, and so I developed a home-grown solution. My program, called Audio Portfolios, allows students to record their voices and play them back, and it also uploads the audio file for their teachers to review. It's now online, you can have a look here: http://www.audioportfolios.com. Besides audio, this program also captures video, if the user has a webcam attached to the computer.

Another implementation of this technology is my Audio Assignments, which enables the instructor to record questions for students to answer. Audio Assessments is next. Look for it in 2008.

Here are some links to development resources that others have found useful:

Demonstrations of technology solutions:

My theoretical interest is in second-language acquisition, specifically the acquisition of second-language phonology. I've been able to combine my interest in CALL with my research. My dissertation explored the perception and production of first and second language vowels. I also work with linguistics and language graduate students with technical aspects of their theses and dissertations.

My extra-curricular interest is in heritage language. I'm involved in a local Chinese heritage language school, and also a member of the state-wide Chinese heritage language teacher association.The school received external funding to develop a website of computer-based modules for practicing recognizing Chinese characters.

Last updated: March 2007.