This year's CALICO conference was convenient in both timing and geography for those who also attended Digital Stream at CSU Monterey Bay. Held at UC Davis and starting just three days after Digital Stream, CALICO attracted many SWALLT members as attendees and presenters. Among SWALLT attendees were: Carol Reitan, Cindy Jorth, Gus Leonard, Judi Franz, Harold Hendricks. Gus, Cindy and Harold all also presented at the conference.

A variety of pre-conference workshops started off the week on Tuesday and Wednesday. These hands-on sessions gave attendees a chance to develop their skills in CALL authoring, speech technology, computerized oral testing, and publishing in professional journals.

Jim Cummins, from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) delivered the Opening Plenary and posed the question: "What do we mean by proficiency in a language?" He explained the distinction between conversational language and academic language proficiency or literacy. He demonstrated a program (e-lective: http://www.iteachilearn.com/cummins/elective.html) he developed, focusing on text as the basis for achieving academic language proficiency. His focus on reading was right in line with Frank Borchardt's keynote at Digital Stream.

Gilberte Furstenberg's keynote focused on the importance of communities in language teaching and learning. These communities include: teacher-to-teacher within a discipline, teacher-to-teacher outside of a specific discipline, teacher-to-class in and out of the classroom, student-to-student within a class and class-to-class. Cultura (http://web.mit.edu/french/culturaNEH/) is a web-based, cross-cultural project she developed which linked her students of French with French students of English. Via online forums, they discussed current events from their unique cultural perspectives. The members of this online community had a common goal and created meaning together through interaction and collaboration.

A plethora of interesting sessions made for difficult decisions throughout the conference. Many sessions focused specifically on CALL research, aimed primarily at faculty. Others showcased innovative and effective technology uses or demonstrated software. Most that I attended were interesting and informative. One of the highlights for me as a lab director in the midst of a computer lab remodel was a presentation by José Rodriguez from Emory University, demonstrating the features of their new Collaborative Classroom. Given a small space and needing maximum flexibility, they designed a room with banquette seating, movable tables, video projection and a laptop cart. The room has become popular because the environment is very conducive to student participation.

An interesting experiment at this year's conference was the grouping of "Thematic Presentations" in a variety of categories. The original idea was for several presenters with similar themes to share a room in a less formal arrangement. Some worked fairly well. However, the result was often simultaneous formal presentations competing for space and volume in a confined area.

The Courseware Showcase is a CALICO tradition, and gave attendees a chance to see demonstrations of software from presenters, ask questions and get some hands-on time. The room was packed with people and a little chaotic but it was a chance to get a good overview of what is being developed by colleagues at other institutions.

The vendor display area was very accessible at this conference, and easy to visit between sessions, as it expanded up three floors in the central hall of the building in which most sessions were held. IALLT's booth was staffed by loyal members (especially Harold Hendricks - thanks, Harold!). Familiar vendors included Tandberg/Divace, Sony, BYU, CLEAR (Michigan State University), LARC (San Diego State University), and NFLRC, along with publishers and others.

Overall, it was a good opportunity both for networking with those outside our core group of lab directors and re-connecting with the colleagues with whom we interact daily on LLTI. CALICO 2003 will be held May 20-24 at the University of Ottawa (http://calico.org).

Judi Franz
University of California, Irvine