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How to conduct a Sanako Study 1200 functionality test before oral exams
- Why? Before high-stakes oral assessments, it is best practice to test the functionality of all computers in the digital audio lab.
- How?
- Log into 2 computers with your own account (these will serve as a backup computers. Should you need backup computers later, there will be no delay waiting for them to start up and become operational).
- Change Sanako classroom layout names to computer or position name (whatever makes it easier for you to identify any non-functioning machines).
- If you are doing this for a first time with a class, load your test exam audio into Audacity and display the voice graph to students on a projector. This way you make sure that students understand from the voice graph that they are supposed to
- hear an instruction over the headphones and
- respond to the instruction by saying their names into their microphones.
- Perform a name-test recording using Sanako activity:”Model imitation”and examine the results:
- Make sure the Sanako collection folder opens – meaning all student recordings could be collected. If not, identify the offending positions from the Sanako collection dialogue and open the folder with the remaining collected recordings manually from the Sanako collection dialogue
- Drag the recorded files into an empty Audacity window and examine the collected recordings visually, plus, where in doubt, aurally, by clicking “solo” and play on the track in question.
- React accordingly:
- If some positions show problems, move students to one of the backup machines that you logged into earlier.
- move backup machines not needed to a different session by right-clicking on their classroom layout icon.
- if more than one backup machine is indeed needed, Sanako – since it is you who are logged in on both – will ask you later for permission to number collected files for duplicate students sequentially. Allow that and rename the files manually.
- Don’t forget to change Sanako classroom layout names back to student login name.
. Or else here is how you can later recover student recordings by student login names.
STM Crash
Oops? Haven’t seen that one before, and the Sanako Study 1200 has been stable. Networking issues again? (availability of file share S-drive?) See similar crash of licensing service recently.
Replacing the Sanako Authoring Tool
- Problem: Oral exams with visual cues have been popular, but the Sanako Authoring Tool we used to create them has been faded out. How can we quickl replace it?
- Workaround:
- collect your files in my Word template (left part of screenshot) like before (question/cue, repetitions, response pause time), including your images
- Save your MS-Word files as html.
- This will create a subfolder with media (right-side of screenshot). All your images are numbered sequentially in the order they appear in your template. Some are duplicated: select the first ones (the duplicate is a size reduction), plus the unique ones, and copy them to a new folder, e.g. “pictures”, on the Sanako teacher share, somewhere underneath your course folder where also your audio exam files resides.
- During the exam , you can display the pictures while playing the audio portion of your oral exam, from this folder sorted by name (= numbered sequentially) with the default teacher computer image viewer. No need even to fling out PowerPoint….
Oral assessments with Sanako model imitation – The ultimate training summary…
…using animated GIFs. Load the speed of your choosing (or several, use CTRL-Click to open links in a new tab) into the left screen of the teacher station before administering an oral exam, with the window active, press F5 in your web browser to restart the animation from the beginning. Slower? Expanded:050cs, 075cs, 100cs, 150cs, 200cs, 300cs, 400cs, 500cs, 1000cs.Or compact for recapitulation: 025cs, 050cs, 075cs, 100cs, 150cs, 200cs, 300cs, 400cs, 500cs, 600cs, 700cs, 800cs, 900cs, 1000cs. 
Keyboard layouts and IME’s on LRC Windows 7 PCs
You can change the input language using the language toolbar which appears next to the notification area in the lower right of the task bar.
Note that many languages need not be listed since their characters can be typed, Windows-wide, using keyboard shortcuts of the English-US (international extended) keyboard layout.
Some installed input methods benefit from having keyboard overlays which have been installed on some computer. Other input methods allow for drawing characters, e.g. in Japanese or Mandarin, which works better with the Wacom tablet installed on PC01 and PC02 than with a mice.
Many languages have more than one keyboard/input method. After changing to your language on the language toolbar, you can switch from the language’s default keyboard layout to another by clicking on keyboard icon behind the 2-letter language abbreviation.
Below is a comprehensive list of all layouts that are available to you:
Example 7: Exercise dictating in German to an LRC Windows 7 computer
How can we get language students more speaking practice with qualified, but affordable feedback ? Native speaker contact remains difficult to organize even in the days of online conferencing. The LRC hosts language tutoring, but numbers are limited. Enter speech recognition, the holy grail of iCALL, much easier for learners to relate to than the voice graph that digital audio can be broken down to, and thus for a long time a standout feature of costly second-language-acquisition packages like Auralog Tell-me-More (speech recognition in English tested here) – but now the LRC has Windows 7 Enterprise (and its free add-on language packs), and another crucial prerequisite: headphones with excellent microphones.
We are setting up the new Windows 7 computers in the LRC to allow for speech recognition in Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish. Here is an example of me using this facility for a practicing my German during a dictation exercise:
Granted, German is my native tongue; but the example text is from the online component for the final chapter of the “Treffpunkt Deutsch” 1st-year textbook in use here, which sends the readers to the website of the Swiss (-German) employment agency.
Apart from infrequent words ("Archiven") and Lehnwörtern ("Bachelor" etc.), Windows 7 speech recognition accuracy seems quite impressive. The above example was actually my first dictation, except that immediately beforehand, I invested a few minutes into the standard Windows 7 speech recognition training (aimed at training the user, although may behind the scenes teach the computer a few things about the speaker already also) and a few more minutes of voice training (this one is meant exclusively for the computer, but the user can also see it fail and why). The – rather simple trick to boost speech recognition results – certainly accessible to our students – seems to be to speak not only clearly, but also slowly, with short pauses between most words.
Speech recognition in these languages is a feature of the Windows 7 (Enterprise/Ultimate version) “language packs” that we installed and switched to – that is why the entire computer interface appears in German. Practicing the L2 with (computer—operating) “voice commands” (instead of with a mouse) is also possible, simpler than replacing the keyboard (mostly) by voice, but not as easy to devise homework exercises for.
Tips for designing exercises using speech recognition: As the example shows ("Archiven") , doing all corrections by voice can quickly become tedious. But there is no pedagogical need to have your students’ bang their heads against this wall. Instead, just ask your students to correct their automatically recognized words manually at the end of their video, after their dictation. This way both you and your students get a clear summary of what they achieved – even clearer if they dictate in MS-Word with the spell and grammar check for the language (automatic with the switch to the language pack for the language) and (using key combination CTRL+SHIFT+E) track changes. We will show you later TBA:how we now enable students to easily record their screen and TBA:upload their screencast into Moodle Kaltura.
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Other ways to find help
If you cannot find it here, look there: 5,500 Language-Learning Links and Programs for learning or teaching 150 languages
Shortcuts:Our Lists, Our Maps, LRC Staff Moodle Site,LRC Project Moodle Site, 49erexpress, UNCC Moodle, Student Recordings: s:claslcslrcsanakostudent
Learning usage samples: Sanako oral exam, Kaltura webcam presentation, Dictation with speech recognition, Sanako written exam, Chinese and Japanese interactive stroke-order practice
Test the Sanako Installer, Webbrowser Popup Konfigurator for XP, or Windows7, faster LRC TeacherPC Log-in Let MS facilitate diacritics writing by installing for you US-International keyboard layout
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