Thomas' Work Space

1. There are many ways, including many that are easier than doing it manually in Audacity.
2. MergeMP3 is a free and easy one that worked here:

1. We experienced slowness of Moodle during an exam where about 12 students
   1. load a Moodle quiz into the Respondus lockdown browser (lockdown browser hangs with message "page loading"),
   2. but also already when logging into Moodle with a regular browser (hangs on login page).
2. Turns out large classes used the Moodle quiz function elsewhere on campus which put lots of load on the Moodle servers.
3. What can we do on our end to work around this as smoothly as possible?
   1. First, be patient while Respondus-lockdown–browser displays “Page loading”
   2. “Refresh” or “Back/forward” are the next resort once “Page loading” attempt has stopped and the page
      1. states it cannot be loaded
      2. displays an error about missing CSS component (likely due to incomplete load before timeout)
      3. says it “can be loaded only in Respondus-lockdown–browser” while you are in Respondus-lockdown–browser (Huh?).
   3. Keep calm and carry on, i.e. on your current computer.
      1. In general, trying on additional “fallback” computers is likely to make matters only worse, since even more load is put on the Moodle server system.
      2. Specifically, however, does Respondus-lockdown–browser block when a user attempts to load a Moodle quiz in Respondus-lockdown–browser on 2 different computers simultaneously? One student kept getting “can be loaded only in Respondus-lockdown–browser” consistently, until closing Respondus-lockdown–browser on this computer. Then the quiz would finally load in Respondus-lockdown–browser where she was logged in on another computer (can this being tracked by the Respondus-lockdown–browser security layer that checks whether a page is loaded within Respondus-lockdown–browser? Why then no more helpful error message, or is this “Security by obscurity”? Data seems inconclusive).
4. Additional tips for takers (and authors) of Moodle exams are available.

1. Here is a 2.5 minute screencast showing off the different ways how you can view your students’ screens using the Sanako Study 1200, .
2. from smallest to biggest, all accessible form the button:”screensharing”
   1. first thumbnails
   2. then thumbnails in extra window
   3. finally autoscan 
3. There will always be tradeoff on the teacher computer between size of individual student screen and overview over class.
   1. for as long as the teacher screen resolution is nowhere near the combined sizes of the student screen resolution;
   2. having the same screen resolution is also desirable, for projecting the teacher screen to the students; multi-monitor teacher stations are a nice compromise.
4. However, as you can see in the screencast, there a number of nice options that make switching between large size and overview (drilling in and moving back out) easy.
   1. The newer versions of the Sanako (here 5.2) allow you to choose many different student screen sizes.
   2. The newest version of the Sanako (5.4) also allows to fit many students screens on a teacher screen by implementing by letting the teacher scroll through the classroom layout).

Currently the preferred layout is Exam 2: Choose this when the Sanako starts

1. The capability of increasing the size of the student thumbnails, to be able to easily read the MS-Word writing student exercises template that I had programmed for Sanako Lab 300 was sorely missed in version 1 and 2 of the Sanako Study 1200 software.
2. In version 5, the capability to adjust the size has been added.  In Tutor.exe, Go to Menu: tools / preferences / thumbnail-size.
3. Now, however, the 20 licensed student seats we have, already fill up the entire Teacher software’s screen estate since the software window cannot be spanned across our multi-monitor setup (The Sanako software seems to have this single-screen limitation built-in. Our unusual asymmetric (1280 and 1024) dual-monitor system may have something to do with it).
4. Fortunately, in the newest version 5.42 for of Sanako Study, scrollbars appear and allow for panning the classroom layout window if there are more student icons/thumbnails than will fit on the screen.
5. Upgrading to a screen with a larger screen resolution on the teacher computer would be even better.
6. We  hope to teach up to 30 students (class sizes seem to be constantly increasing, but the LRC also caters to visits of merged class sections which may be even larger than 30 students) in this large classroom setup:
7. 

Receded computer screens would save us having to rename the LRC  learning environment from “face-to-face” to “face-hidden-behind-screen-from-face”, and are especially good for communicative language class activities that are not computer-mediated, but only –aided. Receded screens also provide pretty good privacy, and are essential for written exam integrity.

… and sent us a thick envelope chock-full of these very sweet handwritten thank-you notes.

I have twin nieces their age, so I know that it can take a bit to get them to write these notes (I am looking at you, Miss M…! ).

The little man on the screen they mention, that can talk in tongues is the Microsoft-Deskbot, and the headphones they mention were connected to a Sanako Study 1200 digital audio lab.

I hope we can upgrade all this to Windows 7 this summer, and that the Language Academy will be back next spring to admire it all…

		LRC intrigues Language Learners VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

1. DVDs are getting a bit long in the tooth, not to mention VHS, and can form a real obstacle or time-consuming distraction in an educational setting, from handling the media to finding compatible software and/or hardware players for the media.
2. Fortunately, there is a now a better way to make video clips available to students than uploading them to YouTube.com:
   1. university-supported,
   2. more compliant with copyright and fair use restrictions (which still apply)
   3. also requiring only a web browser (available on all campus computers, including teacher computers in classrooms, including those that have no (region-free) DVD-player installed)
   4. and a course enrolment. But access to a Moodle course can  now be considered a given, both for teachers and students.
3. Moodle Kaltura allows for easy
   1. uploading of a video file by the teacher
   2. viewing by the student (streamed – Flash required, not different from YouTube.com).
4. View a screencast example how easy it is with Moodle Kaltura to upload and playback a video clip from a movie DVD.
   1. Not different from YouTube.com, you still need to edit out the segment from the DVD that you want to show in your class,  uploading a full DVD I do not intend to test.
   2. From this example, you can also get an idea how long the server-side encode takes before the video an be streamed back to students: the short clip of a few minutes here starts playing back at 12:40. Naturally, a teacher would prepare their course, including all video uploads, before the term starts or possibly before the week starts, or, in extremis, before the class starts – in practice, only the – extremely unlikely – scenario where the teacher would try and upload the video during the class is not supported.

1. View screens (best viewed side by side, but note that left and right screen are not synchronized):
   1. for full slide show (note the included short links for convenient further reading), left screen
   2. for Sanako interface and full audio track, right screen.
2. Table of contents:
   1. Overview of a Sanako Oral Exam
   2. Examples of Exam teachers’ exam question recordings
   3. Example of a Sanako Exam
   4. Loop induction
   1. creating an exam question recording
   2. by taking a Sanako exam as a student
   5. Step-by-Step of administering a Sanako oral exam
   6. Grading Sanako oral exam student files
      1. Sanako voice insert for
         1. facilitating recording oral assignments for student without hard-coded pauses
         2. commenting on student responses during grading
   7. Sanako authoring tool for providing visual on top of aural cues to students
3.