LiveMocha is a new Social Software Way to Learn Languages

Live Mocha is a new way to learn foreign languages. This service was launched this past September and is still free because it is still in Beta testing. I have already suggested this resource to the Spanish-language practice group here at the library, and I have consulted the community of Spanish-speakers to help make signs for the SCPL. This is a great resource and fun as well. Below are a couple of posts I made to a "Cool Tools" blog, looking at cool new social software tools for a course called "Social Software in Libraries," taught by Prof. Debbie Faires at SJSU library school. Our group project is now available as one big RSS-subscribable podcast at
http://feeds.feedburner.com/CoolToolsForLibrary20.
Here are the posts I made for the project:

I tried Livemocha, which is a new social way to learn languages.
The CEO, Shirish Nadkarni, explains in the launch video how the best electronic language tools are still on CDROM, early 1990s technology.
Livemocha is in beta, so it is still free.
You can sign up for a course, have your work evaluated by native speakers, chat with native speakers or with a group of people all learning the same language,
you can speak and hear if you have a microphone and headset, and you can even communicate via video if you have a webcam.
When they started there were 6 core languages, but this has already expanded to 27.
As our communities become more linguistically diverse and as the world becomes more integrated, I think that Livemocha will be a great tool for library staff to learn other languages and also as something to recommend to the public. Clicking on the logo at the top of this post or the link at the end of this sentence should get the podcast.

Here is the text. Victor for Cool Tools, signing off.

This is Victor again. This tool has so many features that I would need several screencasts to suggest the full range.
There are messages, friends, IMs, face-to-face interviews with webcams, real live audio conversations with native speakers in several languages.
Once again, my efforts do not do justice to this cool new social way to learn languages.


Once again, clicking the link should get the screencast.