Archive

Archive for January, 2012

How we reorganized the reception area to improve support of circulation and small group work

2012/01/25 1 comment

The new reception desk is meant to secure the entrance to Coed436. To secure the circulation equipment, we do not let students into COED436 anymore, whether they are trying to check out equipment or for other reasons (except if they need to see the LRC coordinator). Hand all equipment to students over the counter. The door to Coed436 has to  be locked when the LRC Assistant leaves the reception desk (it always can be unlocked from inside).

We also carved out 2 small group work spaces in the LRC entrance area. They can be used by language tutors with their students, and by other small student groups, including for assigned film viewing. These work spaces currently do not have to be booked, but they can be. Bookings take precedence over walk-ins. Send meeting requests to LRCRoomCoed433c@uncc.edu (Group1 next to entrance), LRCRoomCoed433d@uncc.edu (Group 2)). The calendar on the reception desk will display the bookings.

We moved 3 more iMacs (with built-in web cameras) into the main classroom (currently available to students only when all other iMacs are in use). All the iMacs in the main classroom actually have now also their own “room”: LRCroomCoed433b@uncc.edu (iMacs), but we are not requiring this “room” to be booked (yet). We are considering this in an attempt to avoid pile-ups of students trying to take video recording assignment. First we monitor actual usage patterns, especially nearing assignment dead-lines.

New “rooms”, and other equipment types are highlighted in green on our list of bookable resources.

renovation-hack

coed433-CIMG0013 Stitch

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, documentation, iMacs, Institution-is-University-of-North-Carolina-Charlotte, Reception-desk, service-is-library, service-is-tutoring, small-group-work-spaces, TV-viewing-area Tags: ,

How a teacher best adds cues and pauses to an mp3-recording with Audacity to create student language exercises

2012/01/25 1 comment
  1. The first screencast example uses insert tones and a gut amount of pause, for an interpreting exercise, into an authentic German political speech
    1. 1:00 search for a break (button: play/stop  – pause prevents edits)
    2. 1:05 move the cursor to the break (mouse left-click on timeline)
    3. 1:20 insert a pause (menu:Generate / Silence )
    4. 1:25 zoom in (button:magnifying glass, CTRL + mouse scroll wheel)
    5. 1:45 generate a tone (menu:Generate / Noise), change the duration
    6. 2:10 do not replace the selection
    7. 2:20 use undo, just like in MS-word and other programs
    8. 2:30 move the cursor to the start of the selection (mouse left-click on timeline)
    9. 2:40 generate a tone (menu:Generate / Noise)
    10. don’t forget to review results before distributing to students
  2. the second screencast example, of post-editing a questions/response exercise in ESL, takes the amount of pause inserted from the recorded teacher instruction for the student, and uses copy/paste to speed things up even more.
  3. You can also only insert tones and not pauses, as in the 3rd screencast, and allow the students flexible pause lengths, if you can rely on the Sanako Student recorder Voice insert. Or if you must, let students use audacity for recording also, and have them learn how to move the recording cursor around manually, and throw away the source track.
Categories: documentation, e-languages, Listening, Media, Screencasts, service-is-learning-materials-creation, Speaking Tags: , ,

How a teacher creates audio recordings for use with Sanako Student Voice Insert mode

2012/01/24 Leave a comment
    1. One of the Sanako Student player’s useful features  geared toward language learning activities, is that it can save the teacher the time and effort for inserting pauses into their audio recordings,  so that students can record responses into them.
      1. Meaning the teacher can just press the red speak button sanako-student-player-speakand record through the entire file in one sitting.
      2. The teacher can still help students finding their way around the file, especially where to insert their own audio recording responses, by adding aural cues.
        1. This can be done in minimal time: I once saw a teacher use a bicycle bell – and why not, if it saves time.
        2. A spoken instruction “Respond”/”Answer in 10 seconds” is not more difficult to spot (unless only the voice graph is being browsed) and might be even better.
        3. If you have spare time: 
          1. You can post-edit the file with audacity, generating and inserting sinus tones.
          2. You can use the Sanako player to insert bookmarks instead of cues.
    2. As long as students have been instructed to how to use voice insert recording mode with the Sanako student recorder.
      1. This is for self access of students to teacher recorded files – be it during class or homework.
      2. If you want to record students under exam conditions, a similar insert recording feature is available within the activity: Model imitation, but not with a pre-recorded file, only when the live teacher is the program source students listen to for cues.
Categories: Arabic, audience-is-teachers, documentation, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Listening, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, presenter-computer, Russian, service-is-learning-materials-creation, software, Spanish, Speaking, Student-Computers, Swahili, Yoruba Tags: , , , ,

How to bypass a Moodle Popup Window when using Respondus lockdown browser

2012/01/24 Leave a comment
  1. Problem: when starting the Moodle Lockdown browser to take an online exam, it opens with a popup window about messages. Popup window prevents access to the underlying main Moodle browser window (and exam). When closing the popup window, the entire lockdown browser closes, including main Moodle browser window. CIMG0088
  2. Cause: Moodle can be configured to show a notification window when messages have arrived since your last login. This notification window has poor compatibility with the lockdown browser.
  3. Workaround: In the popup window, click on the tab: “Settings” and uncheck (at least for this exam session) the checkbox to show the  message box as a popup when logging in. Close the popup window. CIMG0089
  4. Result: Even if this closes the main Moodle browser window once again, when you start the Moodle Lockdown browser again, the popup window will not appear again, and you can take your exam.
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-teachers, e-learning, Glitches&Errors, lms Tags: , ,

How to enforce deadlines on your language syllabus using Moodle

2012/01/23 1 comment
  1. Experience seems to make teachers much prefer if students “try and fight with the computer over deadlines”, or rather spend their time studying instead of arguing about excuses why not study (“Dog ate my homework"- syndrome).
  2. When you create a Moodle assignment, in each assignment type you will find a fields that allow you to create a time window
    1. before
    2. and after which the assignment is not available to students.
  3. For easier remembering, assignments with deadlines
    1. automatically appear in the Moodle Calendar
    2. and can be made to automatically show in the NINERMAIL calendar
  4. Hint: provide some extra credit to ease the pain of learning how to meet deadlines which are a requirement for progression in learning a language, especially when not doing independent study, but interacting within a cohort.
    1. Suggested: “Best 3 out of 5” for first-time users, “4 out of 5” for tech-savvy.
Categories: audience-is-teachers, e-languages, lms Tags: , ,

LRC Outlook/Exchange 2010 Resource Calendaring: How to alter meeting times in OWA

2012/01/23 Leave a comment
  1. If you are the meeting organizer (you initiated the meeting request), in your NINERMAIL/OWA calendar, just click on the meeting and drag the meeting start and/or end time with your left mouse button in the desired new location (works like in Outlook), and send updates (this will not affect for the series of a recurring meeting, only the current occurence): CIMG0127
  2. If you are not the meeting organizer, the meeting organizer, when requesting a meeting with you, may have allowed you to “Request a new time”: use the corresponding button (screenshots are for Outlook):
    1. in the meeting request: outlook-meeting-request-response-propose-new-time-from-calendar-item-menu-context-menu-does-not-have-this-option.
  3. or in the calendar item context menuresponse-propose-new
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-infrastructure, office-software, service-is-documenting Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

How to do reviewing for collaboration, including corrective feedback, in MS-Word

2012/01/21 Leave a comment
  1. Home-brew: MS-Word reviewing screencast: This 3-minute software video contains all you need to get started with using "track changes" in MS-Word 2003 for more efficient collaborative document authoring:
    1. How to turn "track changes"  on/off and what the effect is,
    2. How to use the reviewing toolbar (to select which type of changes to show (and not to show) and to cycle through changes, accepting/rejecting them one by one or all at once),
    3. How to make sure to print/not print tracked changes (and comments)
  2. Microsoft-made: http://office.microsoft.com/home/video.aspx?assetid=ES102520891033&width=884&height=540&startindex=0&CTT=11&Origin=HA102520671033
    1. For Word2007, but all the buttons explained here are also on menu:view / toolbar / reviewing in Word 2003
    2. Note especially the section 4:11-5:30 about how to avoid embarrassment by permanently removing tracked changes before publishing a document
Categories: audience-is-teachers Tags: , , ,

How to do writing assignments in Moodle with deadlines, file and response file upload and MS-Word tracked changes

2012/01/20 Leave a comment
  1. Benefits
    1. Keep the cohort in shape and focus it on studying by enforcing deadlines.
    2. You can have students automatically receive reminders of the upcoming deadlines from their calendar (in NINERMAIL, no need to even look at the Moodle Calendar)
    3. You can save time managing the assignment.
      1. Moodle does it for you; you will save even more time once you begin recycling your assignment across terms) and rather provide more timely feedback, and improve changes that your feedback arrives during a teachable moment.
      2. Automatic email notifications,  which are available in Moodle for teachers (if you do not prefer to grade student submissions in a batch) and students to (automatic correction and grading is not ready for prime-time when it comes to essay writing; you may however consider teaching some more basic writing skills using it with close-exercises in Moodle).
    4. Costs
      1. You need to TBA:create a Moodle file upload assignment for writing (once)
      2. You need to grade a Moodle file upload assignment for writing (any time you assign; depending on your preference as submissions arrive or conveniently as a batch from the gradebook past the deadline)
        1. I prefer the MS-Word reviewing features for grading writing assignments,
        2. but other tools have other affordances, e.g. like recently described here for Adobe Acrobat Professional.
      3. Moodle does not automatically add unique usernames to student submitted files like Blackboard. It also does not afford the TBA:convenience of a shared network storage that the WebDAV-based Blackboard Content system provides. However, as long as you do not need to maintain a local archive of student submissions, you can rely on the Moodle gradebook managing the archive of assignment files (student submissions and teacher response files).
      4. How? These 4 posts guide you through the entire workflow from teacher to student back to  teacher to student:
        1. How a teacher creates a Moodle file upload assignment for writing
        2. How a student takes a Moodle file upload assignment for writing
        3. How a teacher grades a Moodle file upload assignment for writing
        4. How a student reviews a Moodle file upload assignment for writing
Categories: assignments, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, lms, office-software, Writing Tags: , , , , ,