Lango LAB appears to be a well designed language-learning site that, to a large extent, is user-generated. Unfortunately, it primarily uses YouTube videos, which means it’s not a viable tool for most public school teachers and students in the U.S. since the vast majority of school content filters block that site.
However, others without that obstacle might find it useful. If you fit into that category, I’d encourage you to read Nick Peachey’s post describing it more in-depth.
Thanks very much for writing about langolab. I should mention that uploaded videos and webcam-recorded videos don’t get streamed from youtube — they get streamed from langolab’s servers (thanks, Amazon S3!) — so hopefully the youtube filters are meaningless for these. I should also direct your readers to this blog post: http://blog.langolab.com/2008/11/things-foreign-language-teachers-can.html , which explains a few things that foreign language teachers can currently do with langolab.
I would love to talk to the tech people at your schools to see if we could work out a standard solution to use with firewalls for youtube videos streamed via langolab. I would also love to collaborate with foreign language teachers and hear about any and all feedback, ideas, or visions for the site. Speak up! Just use the “LEAVE FEEDBACK” link on the left edge of the langolab.com site.
Adam, langoLAB founder