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Archive for August, 2011

Our Office 2010 & Office365/Live@Edu/Live not yet @Edu/Ninermail Upgrade: A running log

2011/08/11 1 comment
  1. Just logging some notes, observations, issues, step-by-step instructions…
  2. Office 2010ff install (office2010-full-install-labadmn.wmv [all links are to the folder only, choose screencast by name):
    1. 0:00-2:00: you can easily install Office 2010 from the ISO file without physical CD media, if you first install the free Magic Disc, then from the system notification tray, mount the ISO file to the , open the pseudo-drive from Explorer, which starts the installer through Autorun
    2. 2:00-4:00: since we do not want frozen imaged lab computers to ask for the installation media “on first run”of Office features, we choose button:customize, tab:installation options: “run all from Computer” (top – level selection is sufficient, rest of video is looking around), then button:upgrade
    3. Lots of waiting ensues…
    4. At the end, 28:55, “Microsoft office professional plus 2010 encountered and error during setup”, also the installer complains once about another instance running, then 38:12 asks for rebooting,
  3. Office 2010 first run  (office2010first-run-excel-web-app-test.wmv): 
    1. after reboot, the installation seems to have completed
    2. changing Office update policies seems to be not allowed
    3. file /save&send / save to web / windows live / log in / browse to a folder / give a filename: office2010-file-save&save-to-web 
    4. type something, save and exit
    5. in web browser, open windows live:
      1. log in, go to menu:SkyDrive, browse to the folder, find the file, click on it to view in browser,
      2. from top menu, choose edit in browser, type something, save,
      3. from top menu choose edit in excel, wait for download to open, type something, save&close,
      4. go back to web browser, open the update document from the right users (lab staff).
  4. sharing with windows live
      1. first uncc-LRC needs to make some friends:
        1. eventually, we want the staff of the uncc-LRC be able to use these online  extensions of the most common tools in our work environment, MS-Windows and MS-Office. For this, we need to wait until live@edu/ninermail  is up, so that we can invite lab staff using their @uncc.edu email  addresses
        2. for testing purposes, I have invited myself and the lab coordinator using their personal Hotmail/live addresses
      2. friends need to accept the invitation email  – and even on Hotmail/live mail, look for them in their Junk mail folder (this has been one of the unresolved mysteries of inter-office politics at Microsoft since at least 2007). accepting-friend-request
      3. second, in SkyDrive, share your files with these  friends, and with the right permissions
        1. skydrive-setting-folder-permissionsa sharing policy, per folder, needs to be decided upon
        2. uncc-non-secure permissions: all view, friends edit: uncc-lrc-non-secure-permissions
        3. uncc-secure-settings: only friends view and edit (shall we limit editing to some friends? permanent staff?) uncc-lrc-secure-permissions
        5. skydrive-permissions-folder-secure-some-friends note that some granularity of permissions is already supported, like
          1. folder:”secure”- “friends”:”can add,edit,delete”
          2. folder:”secure”- “friends”:”can read”
          3. folder:”secure”- “some friends”:”can add,edit,delete”
        6. skydrive-setting-folder-permissions-public-cannot-give-edit-access-beyond-friends note that you can give read, but not write access to files beyond the circle of your friends (“friending” within the organization should, however, become are more acceptable option when/if live@edu will allow for @uncc.edu accounts, and interesting, since it offers disintermediation for office network admin tasks).
        7. skydrive-upload-files-standard you can add files through a standard web-interface, or a more advanced Active-x control (looks like your mileage may still widely vary outside of Internet Explorer which is even more confusing when the ActiveX interface is offered in Firefox, but shows glitches). Note, however, that opening a local file in Office 2010 and save&share to SkyDrive is more attractive – however, will you in MS-Office see the folders that are merely shared with you to add to? Does not look like it. Stay tuned… office2010-file-save&save-to-web-windows-live-skydrive. one can still upload the spreadsheet from the web browser, then, also from a web browser, click “open in excel”. From then on, one can open it ore easily from the excel File / history shortcut. I am still working on figuring out how to map SkyDrive folders to local drives (it worked for one set, but other mappings run into problems: Is this because MS allows only one windows live identity to be mapped to your local windows account?)
        8. To publish (possible embed in a web page) spreadsheets with Excel Web App, you can choose:
          1. SkyDrive menu: add files
            1. add an existing file
          2. or SkyDrive menu: “new”
          1. Excel web app ribbon menu: “Open in Excel”
          2. Copy/Paste your content and Save, Close
          3. Excel Web app menu “excel-web-app-menu-embed Share”/ “Embed”:i
          4. Adjust your options in this sharing dialog: excel-web-app-share-embed-options
          5. To embed, take the html-code (you can increase the max width beyond 640 outside of this dialog) and paste it into your web publishing program
          6. Gotcha: To be embeddable, the spreadsheet needs to be in a public folder, or else: excel-web-app-gotcha-public-folder
            1. To move the file, use the “move”option in the file details pane to the right: excel-web-app-gotcha-public-folder4-file-details
            2. This setting should  make it work: excel-web-app-gotcha-public-folder-workaround
            3. And interestingly, it does, automagically: You do not have to update the embed code. It seems the link within the embed code goes to a “file” which has the “folder” it is in not as a path (in the link), but as an attribute:excel-web-app-gotcha-public-folder3
        9. to share a file: Examples for MS-office live file collaboration
          1. MS-Excel
            1. Do not use the “embed” link from SkyDrive, e.g. https://r.office.Microsoft.com/r/rlidExcelEmbed?su=10634757809471938&Fi=SD25C841818181C2!133: this opens in read-only even if I am logged in (in Firefox and in Excel)( as a friend with editing rights)
            2. use the “edit” link from SkyDrive, e.g https://skydrive.live.com/edit.aspx?cid=0025C841818181C2&resid=25C841818181C2%21133: “edit in browser” attempts first opening in browser (Firefox – not asking for  permissions, since I am logged in as friend with editing permissions), unsupported features redirect to excel 2010, opening in “protected view“ – but can enable editing.
            3. Note that when opening in excel 2010, you lose the concurrency that excel web app offers – thus, only 1 LRC assistant can have the online spreadsheet open to make update to the film collection (we have one barcode scanner equipped PC only anyway, so use this one for editing the film-collection.xlsx)
          2. MS-PowerPoint
              1. here is a folder link from where you can click on ""open in PowerPoint":
                https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=0025c841818181c2&resid=25C841818181C2!115
              2. this may take time: open-in-powerpoint-2010-from-skydrive
              3. here is the ""edit in browser"" link  https://skydrive.live.com/edit.aspxcid=0025C841818181C2&resid=25C841818181C2%21146
        10. to delete a file on SkyDrive: skydrive-delete-file 
          1. in detail view, hover over the file row
          2. click on the blue info button at the right end of the file row
          3. in the property pane that opens up on the right, click “delete”.
        11. MS-Word
          1. Just in case you were wondering about the underlying WEBDAV: You cannot paste the “open in word” link into a MS-Word 2010 file open dialogue (you used to be able to paste WebDAV links form the Blackboard Content System into MS-Word’s File-Open, but those were fully qualified URIs to MS-Word-files without JavaScript trickery), or else:
          2. could-not-open
        12. As of 9/27/2011, I also now managed to get in to SkyDrive with my university credentials, for how, see here: Skydrive@uncc.edu
  5. Natural language features testing in MS-Office 2010 is being logged here.
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, documentation, e-infrastructure, office-software, Screencasts Tags: , , ,

Webinar: Respondus 4.0 for Moodle by Vendor

2011/08/10 Leave a comment

In case you could not make it to this live online presentation shortly before the term start, I taped this respondus-4-moodle-webinar (plays for sure in Windows Media Player on the Lab PCs) for your review. I also made this transcript which can help you jump to the information that interests you most:

0: 00

question editor

1: 00

signing up for a test bank

4: 00

importing questions from a test bank  (example:  human biology)

6: 30

editing the quiz based on the test bank 

7: 00

adding another question, multiple choice

07: 00

question types in Moodle and Respondus are similar

08: 00

ad advanced formatting, like bold or html or multimedia

09: 00

from a local computer or on the web, like youtube.com

10: 00

equations

12: 00

printing exams

14: 00

publishing exams directly into Moodle

14: 00

enter your Moodle server information (once; or never, if your administrator has prepopulated these fields for you)

16: 00

summary

18: 00

lockdown browser:  can’t print, capture screen as image or video, can’t browse web or instant messaging programs

20: 00

integration with Moodle (Moodle block if hosted, module if self-hosted)

21: 00

within Moodle, on the update quiz link, in the section: Respondus lockdown browser

21: 30

students perspective:  local client software install

23: 30

example of taking an exam with the lockdown browser

28: 30

what the exam will look like if the students tries to access it with another browser

30: 30

admin perspective:  info for the lockdown browser license administrator, including for lab administrators with imaging and answer files

34: 30

summary

36: 30

online documentation

37: 30

pricing

38: 30

q&a: support for Moodle:  2.0,2.1 yes

39: 30

q&a: the admin can in the admin portal prepopulate the server settings for the teachers’ Respondus

40: 30

q&a:  question types in Moodle are different from blackboard :  these get dropped when you change the personality (blackboard/Moodle) within Respondus, but most basic question types simply carry over back and forth

41: 30

q&a: default font size:  menu: file / menu item:  preferences/ tab: edit&publish

42: 30

q&a:  convert exam view files –  go through the publisher of the text bank – or export to word, put the Respondus import markup in, import word into Respondus

44: 30

q&a:  lockdown browser system requirements:  see online http://www.Respondus.com/lockdown/faq.shtml

44: 30

q&a:  timed exams? Yes, but through Moodle, lockdown browser just passes this through

45: 30

q&a:  virtual machine:  lockdown browser prevents it (no need for vm with windows with new mac version of lockdown browser)

46: 30

q&a:  dual screen:  lockdown browser prevents it , beyond enforcing full screen

47: 30

q&a:  how to push out the lockdown browser to your students during the first quiz? Best set up a test quiz with just this purpose

48: 30

q&a:  will the timer from Moodle show in the lockdown browser:  yes

49: 30

q&a:  about hosting

50: 30

q&a: multiple questions to a single image

51: 30

q&a:  publishers

While I like the impetus of Respondus to facilitate formative assessment, its utility seems limited if you do not have pre-authored publisher test bank for your topic. Or rather the functionality of preformatting text in MS-Word and importing it – not demonstrated in this screencast – seems more convenient (and partially could be automated, especially in SLA quizzes by using NLP) than actually authoring quizzes in Respondus – but is also available in Moodle itself.

Or use a simple quiz-generating MS-Word template if you do not need an LMS, but rather feedback so much faster than on the WWW, as implemented in current LMS, that a difference in quantity difference forms a new quality).

And I can also not say that I see much new in Respondus since 2004, except for the Moodle support, which naturally did not exist then. In the area of Web 2.0, one would wish for more than just publisher-driven test banks (where language are largely absent except for the most popular courses).

Categories: assessments, e-learning, learning-materials Tags: , ,

How to set up PowerPoint show on dual screen computers

2011/08/10 1 comment

Before trying to show your PowerPoint on the classroom projector, with your PowerPoint file open on the teacher computer, go to the dialogue: “Set up Show” and choose from the dropdown: “secondary monitor”, click “OK”, like so:

set-up-show

Then proceed as normal.

Categories: Area-is-any, audience-is-teachers, LRCRoomCoed434, Presenter-Computer Tags: , , ,

Multi-monitor setups

2011/08/09 Leave a comment

Bill Gates has been quoted not too long ago praising his IT staff for equipping him with a “three screens, synchronized to form a single desktop” office computer.

Multi-monitor user interfaces are increasingly deemed useful, if not necessary, to handle the richer data flows created by computers (The following slideshow contains samples of such systems I have collected over recent years, not a few are from Language centers).

Categories: audience-is-teachers, e-infrastructure Tags:

Calendaring: How to use your Moodle course calendars to keep your students up to date

2011/08/05 Leave a comment
  1. UPDATE: this now stopped working here. Clicking on the link from IE9, using “open with”: MS-Outlook 2010 fails with “the requested information store could not be found in the active profile”. I have not found a way to feed the Moodle ical link manually into MS-Outlook 2010 (Shared Calendars / Add Calendar / From Internet) or OWA different problem). Stay tuned…
  2.  Easy if you use standard Moodle assignments: “Adding closing dates to course activities — assignments, quizzes etc. will cause them to show up in the calendar block as course events. “
  3. Other assignments you have to add manually, like so:
  4. calendar-view
  5. new-event
  6. Resulting in this:  new-event-result1or this:
  7. new-event-result
  8. Editing your calendar in other applications and importing, even synching it with Moodle is not currently (2.1) supported.
  9. More on Calendar you can find in the official 1.9 Moodle calendar doc and FAQ.
Categories: audience-is-teachers, e-infrastructure Tags: ,

How to disable or rather bypass the Popup Blocker in your Web browser

2011/08/04 Leave a comment

Try pressing the CTRL-key when clicking a link that tries to open a popup window.

This is a known problem with web-based learning applications like Moodle or library ereserves (like UNCCC’s Docutek ERes-based one) .

You can permanently disable popup blockers for certain sites if you study the documentation that comes with your browser (and possibly with the shared computer) you are working on.

Categories: e-infrastructure, websites Tags: , , ,

Free screencast recording software from Microsoft

2011/08/02 Leave a comment

Teachers ask me about software for making screencasts explaining procedures to their students. I have not googled for free screencast recorders recently, since I have been happy for many years to use (or rather work with extensively, and recommend) Windows Media Encoder 9 on MS-Windows. Allegedly as of end of 2010, this software is not linked on Microsoft’s website anymore (but can still be googled and downloaded). Even though not officially supported on this OS any more, I have also used it successfully on Windows 7 (64-bit) (after Vista (64-bit) and Windows XP)).

The official replacement screencast recorder from Microsoft is Windows Expression Encoder (of which I still use the inexpensive Version 3), which is available here (Version 4 SP1) for free. Media Encoder is almost 10 years old, so Expression Encoder is clearly superior – however, the free version is somewhat crippled, most notably in this context I seem to remember the time limit for screencasts is 10 minutes.

Both Encoders are somewhat technical in nature. In particular, I suspect the reason why considerable experts did not know Media Encoder as a screencast recorder (which is not the same as a documentation and training maker: its post-editing capabilities are limited and not specialized for documentation, unlike e.g. Camtasia), was that its default settings for screencast recordings are low quality.

To “uncork” the real possibilities of this software, your first need to alter the compression settings within the WME configuration file that your screencast is based on (you can do this from within Windows Media Encoder itself). Moreover, for this change to stick, you need to alter an underlying PRX template file also. This file is hidden away in the depths of the Encoder install directories; after installing Windows Media Encoder, search your programs folder for a file named schia.prx, it is an XML file that will open with the Windows Media Encoder utilities.

Categories: e-infrastructure, software Tags: , ,