Archive

Archive for November, 2013

Why not streaming audio from teacher to students in the Sanako is a poor workaround

2013/11/12 Leave a comment
  1. We lost streaming capabilities with upgrade to Sanako Version 7 – still investigating how we can get them back, for the workaround is not working well: Now class activities fail because of permission issues that we did not have when we still were able to stream.
  2. Below is the result of an attempt today to play a listening comprehension activity to students for a TOEFL list mock exam with a student that has regular SANAKO permissions, but not the ones to download from this file location (would need to redo the permissions if we keep streaming).
Categories: audience-is-IT-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, Glitches&Errors Tags: ,

Finding a balance between speed of log-in and readiness on help desk computers

2013/11/11 Leave a comment
  1. Problem:
    1. The LRC reception desk has 3 computers, each with 2 screens, one client-facing,  that, when not shared during collaboration for clerical tasks, display (LRC assistants have been instructed which screen has to show which information) LRC-related information (LRC calendar, home page with news and FAQs, slide show with signs).
    2. However, when a teacher was bringing student to Spanish tutor after tutoring hours, I  noticed,  that no LRC calendar was visible at reception desk (SAFARI on rightmost computer), nor could be loaded easily.
    3. Upon my asking, LRC assistant reported, Firefox never comes up correctly on her computer.
    4. What I could observe: Firefox came up with 2 windows w/o preconfigured tabs. image
    5. Safari came  up with 2 windows , also empty.image
  2. Root cause:
    1. It turned out that other students did not have this issue when logging in on the computers.

    2. It also turned out that the offending student’s profile had been frozen prematurely (in an obsolete state not incorporating changes we had to do during the term to maintain functionality of the reception desk computers in a changing campus IT environment).

  3. Workaround: Unfreeze the computer, delete the prematurely frozen profiles, have the student log in to recreate it using current default user settings, freeze the computer, to make the computer, 3 weeks before classes end…
  4. Solution: not sure I have one.
    1. Trying to have everything set up stably at term start is not the solution, but the problem.
    2. How can agility be increased?
      1. LRC assistants need to report problems. They may need better training to be aware of problems, and need an incentive to report problems, and a culture where reporting problems is not considered a problem in itself, but an achievement.
      2. The LRC lost its Symantec-Ghost imaging infrastructure which it could not only use for the lab PCs, but also to maintain 3 identical computers at its reception desk. This requirement for imaging was not considered during the recent upgrade of the labs imaging infrastructure, and we do not know how to get this capability back.
Categories: e-infrastructure, Reception-desk Tags: , , , ,

How to create screencasts of student presentations for the language learner ePortfolio in the digital audio lab

2013/11/08 Leave a comment

image

  1. Students can now easily video-record their own screens during class presentations – not only when using PowerPoint; instead students could demo a website, like their Facebook page.
  2. Last year, we were limited to PowerPoint’s record slideshow with timing and narration feature, and either send the PPSX (small, but requires the PowerPoint viewer) or the “Save as” video (new in PowerPoint 2010; computing intensive and large file size).
  3. Now with MS-Community Clips, screencasts are
    1. minimal effort to create (keyboard shortcut WIN+ALT+R or T; save on desktop; drag/drop into Sanako homework folder)
    2. and little effort to distribute:
      1. Students could have uploaded to a Moodle’ file upload assignment (default file size limit: 64MB) or Kaltura file upload assignment (not sure whether there is a size limit). This seems more suitable for assignments with screencasts recordings.
      2. In this instance
        1. Sanako collected the Homework files to the Sanako share,
        2. my langlabemailer emailed them as attachment (so far tested to allow for 25MB attachment size, the equivalent of 7-8 minute screencast, a hefty space to fill in L2!  We also established: 45MB is too much… Smile)  to the originating student and teacher, for review, grading –
      3. and – provided it passes muster as an attractive and significant piece – possibly for re-use in the student’s language learner ePortfolio.
  4. In addition,
    1. Before the presentations, the teacher easily collaborated on proof-reading the slide decks of individual students, by using the Sanako Remote control screen sharing feature.
    2. During the presentation, students followed more closely – which seemed to increase their attention and comprehension -, thanks to audio and screen being shared to them from the presenter, using the Sanako’s  “Model student” feature.
Categories: Arabic, audience-is-teachers, digital-audio-lab, e-languages, English, eportfolio, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Hindi, Italian, Japanese, learning-usage-samples, Mandarin, multimedia-recording, office-software, Portuguese, presentations, Presenter-Computer, Russian, Spanish, Speaking, Student-Computers Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Static noise on sanako headsets

2013/11/08 Leave a comment


We seem to have one of these outages in ever class recently. Not sure, whether it is the hardware – the headphone seems not always have static, but frequently. What would be a good way to test this before class, or – to not have to log in individually on all lab computers – at beginning of class?

Categories: digital-audio-lab, Glitches&Errors, hardware, headphones Tags: ,

How to workaround AntWordProfiler error “Cannot open the file”

2013/11/07 Leave a comment
  1. Seems a little bug in this otherwise great program. I started getting this on Windows 7 64-bit with
  2. clip_image003for all files, no matter which size.
  3.   It occurred to me to go to menu: Settings/ global settings / file settings / show full pathnames
  4. Here is what you see: Note the duplicate path to the file.
  5. clip_image001
  6. How did I get there? Seems like you cannot take my usual preferred shortcut and paste the full file path into the browse dialogue.
  7. If I browse to the file and select, the same botched up double path does not appear:
  8. clip_image002
  9. I can then process the file fine. image
Categories: corpora, e-languages, English, Reading, service-is-learning-materials-creation, service-is-testing-troubleshooting-debugging, Vocabulary Tags: ,

View a path to where you can start troubleshooting Pearson MyLanguageLab Wimba Voice Java

2013/11/06 Leave a comment

We used to do proctored LRC chapter exams using this textbook online component, but the Wimba Voice student recording tools stopped working, although a possible solution has been proposed with the problem report. This screencast  leads to an exercise where more testing (each supported browser will behave differently – this is Chrome) is possible::

Categories: audience-is-IT-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, German, Glitches&Errors, Student-Computers, textbooks Tags: , , , ,

How to record your screen with MS-Community Clips

2013/11/06 Leave a comment
  1. During presentations, when creating demonstrations etc., it can be useful to record your screen (and your voice, if you speak into the headphone microphone). In the LRC, we have MS Community Clips pre-installed for this purpose. To start recording: image
  2. To stop recording, follow the same steps, but in step 3 choose “stop”.
  3. Or forget about the menus and remember the keyboard shortcuts: WIN+ALT+R or T.
  4. The video will play automatically. Click stop, menu: Save, Save your recording where you need it (e.g. Desktop). image
  5. If your teacher wants you to submit your recording, in the LRC you can drop it into the Sanako Homework window and “send” it: image
Categories: assessments, audience-is-students, digital-audio-lab, documentation, e-languages, multimedia-recording, presentations, Student-Computers Tags: ,

Can we get rid of Windows Media Player first run experience?

2013/11/05 Leave a comment
  1. It costs a lot of time in a language lab where computers are frozen (user cannot change settings between sessions – unless this is a roaming user setting on the server which it does not appear to be) and audio files are frequently played for which Windows Media Player has is set to be the default player to go through this set of dialogues whenever trying to listen to a file. We had this bypassed in Windows XP/Symantec Ghost. CAM03834
  2. Even better, make the Sanako Recorder the default player for audio files in the language lab. The Sanako student settings I recommend here are meant for the teacher office computers where we do not have to control and try and optimize the experience as tightly as in a face-to-face class teaching lab and therefore can tread lightly during install of the Sanako. In the Student Recorder Settings, "associate media files" option should be checked.
Categories: digital-audio-lab, e-languages Tags: , , ,