Archive

Archive for the ‘audience-is-language-learning-center-staff’ Category

How to batch convert image files with IrfanView

2012/01/11 Leave a comment
  1. Had to make a large number of screenshots recently without being able to set the most convenient file format.
  2. Fortunately, IrfanView has powerful conversion options:
  3. irfanview-batch
  4. and makes batch-converting easy:irfanview-batch2
  5. Limitation: IrfanView uses only one processor core here (Windows7 home): irfanview-batch3
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, e-infrastructure, service-is-documenting, software Tags: , ,

How to record your speech with Audacity

2012/01/11 Leave a comment
    1. For a cut-and-dry recording session, the LRC has a simple instruction on
      1. Recording_an_MP3_Audio_File_Using_Audacity_in_the_LRC here.
      2. Uploading an mp3 recording into a Moodle Forum here.
    2. For more advanced editing with Audacity, I have a detailed screencast here.
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, documentation, e-languages, lms, Screencasts, Screenshots, service-is-learning-materials-creation, software Tags: , , ,

How to make changes to a meeting request to update/alter a reservation

2012/01/10 2 comments
  1. You can easily release a reservation of an LRC room or resources, completely or partially (e.g. some of the time when you return an item earlier than anticipated), from your calendar in OWA/NINERMAIL:
  2. By opening the meeting request 
    1. In (staff:)OWA,
    2. go to your calendar
    3. find and open your meeting
    4. make changes to the meeting, e.g. start and end time
    5. click “Send Update”
    6. (students:)NINERMAIL: looks like you have to cancel the meeting and recreate it with new times. This may change once we get the calendars used by students set up to  autoaccept.
  3. More conveniently, without opening:
    1. right-click on and choose delete the appointment (if necessary, the system is smart enough to ask you whether you want to delete an entire series of appointments or only this occurrence; on cancelling, see also here). owa-update-recurring2_thumb[1]
    2. Or to release the reservation partially (= reduce the time), drag the upper or lower margin to the new desired start or end time. owa-update-recurring_thumb[2]
    3. If you are working with a meeting request (which by definition has more than the organizer as participants, unlike appointments you make for yourself on your calendar; be wary of making changes to meeting requests which you are not the organizer of (= you did not initially create the meeting request)), the system offers you – and should should accept – to notify the other participants automatically. owa-update-recurring3
    4. Which in this case is not a person, but only (unless other people have been included in the resource booking which can be done) a resource mailbox which, if configured to autoaccept, may still respond to you like so, in this case with an acceptance, since you can  not cause a conflict when releasing a resource that had been reserved for you):
    5. owa-update-recurring4
    6. This also only affects the occurrence you are currently working with, as you can see from the stricken-out recurrence icon that results: owa-update-recurring1_thumb[2]
    7. This flexibility is one of the main reasons (= better resource utilization) why we introduced this system: so that users who want to visit the LRC with their class/borrow a resource on short (often happens, depending on pedagogy, with a couple off days or less ) notice don’t have to be turned away with no good reason.
    8. Just do not try updating from the publically viewable web calendars, those are for “view”-ing only, including by students: owa-update-don-not-do-this-from-the-publically-viewable-web-calendar_thumb[3]
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers Tags: , , , , , , , ,

How to search/replace a color in an image – for free using Paint.net

2012/01/05 Leave a comment
  1. I changed your mind about the style some documentation I produced, but did not want to redo it from scratch.
  2. Enter the jchunn effects plugin for Paint.net: Download jchunn and expand the dll into the Effects folder of your Paint.net installation).
  3. Restart paint.net and access the plug-in dialogue from the menu:effects.color replace dialogue
  4. Here are a few example screenshots:color replace dialogue0
  5. color replace dialogue1color replace dialogue2
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, e-infrastructure, service-is-documenting Tags: ,

How to override a Projector control out of synch with the Classroom projector

2011/12/10 Leave a comment
  1. When the projector control system is “out of synch”with the projector.
  2. Symptom: “System off” does not turn the projector off, but also “System on”  does not turn.
  3. Workaround: From the control panel Home screen, access soft button “system tools”CIMG0002 
  4. Here you can manually turn the projector on/off  (and the close the screens)CIMG0001
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-teachers, Classroom-technology, e-infrastructure, Glitches&Errors, hardware, Presenter-Computer, Projectors Tags:

What are best practices for recycling Moodle course teaching content? A running log

2011/12/08 Leave a comment
  1. Guiding Questions:
  2. I am in the process of creating Moodle assignments with instructors. I am inclined to tell them that this is best done now, before the term starts. I have met several instructors who seem to redo all their Moodle assignments and other content, for each term and each section, and who change Moodle courses on the fly, in the middle of the term, adding identical assignments to multiple sections. When I taught with the LMS (in Blackboard environments), the entire course (content) was “rolled over” between terms (and copied into sections), after subtracting student data. What are best practices in Moodle for reusing/recycling such course content, across terms, sections, and instructors? 
  3. Is it possible to get entire course+instructor combinations recycled centrally and automatically, whenever an instructor teaches a course again, from the archive of the last version of the course, sans student data?
  4. Or does each instructor, any time she reteaches a course, have to manually reimport all materials she wants to reuse from her old courses? So far, I have followed this page: http://teaching.uncc.edu/Moodle/how-to/importing-Moodle-course (here is an example of using the import feature when adding assignments into multiple sections in the middle of the term: https://plagwitz.wordpress.com/tag/importing+moodle/). Can this be done before term start at least into one section, from which the other section is created by copying? What would be the cut-off date for that?
  5. Would instructors use the last live version of the course to go forward, like I did with Blackboard, or are instructors advised to develop all content in separate development courses, and selectively import content from there into live courses? Does each instructor have a development course by default? Is it possible/advisable for an instructor to have one development course per actual course she teaches (repeatedly)? Does access of instructors to past courses expire when they get archived, and when would that be?
  6. Finally, how could assignments be exchanged between instructors who teach the same courses? 
  7. Courses seem to be complex packages. Repackaging individual assignments from one generic development course into course packs while importing seems administrative overhead, unless there is a in-built support for packaging that allows to add course tags to content. On the other hand, courses need to be easily updateable: student data needs to be added and removed easily. Teacher content needs to be refined, possibly updated with some current materials each term.
  8. Exploration:
    1. files planning:
      1. When publishing files, I have been trying to restrict all information that needs regular updating (dates, fine tuning of assignments and grading) to the syllabus files which I upload every term. So that I can “roll over” the rest of the course, including its files. 
      2. observe the (max 64mb) file size limit in your Moodle courses
      3. You cannot use this procedure to share Kaltura videos, not even the ones a teacher made
    2. importing
      1. importing steps see here.
      2. To be seamless, source and target course need to have the same format (settings / topical, weekly or other). Otherwise, your exports from a weekly formatted course into a topically formatted course will get put into the topic number corresponding to the week # (which, if you have set to fewer topics than you had weeks, may effectively hide them. Not to worry, you can still retrieve them by adding topics to your course, then moving the assignments where you want them).
      3. backing up/restoring
        1. backing up see here 
        2. restoring see here
        3. more on backup/restore from the Moodle docs FAQ
        4. primary instructor can use assign roles to add other teachers to give them access to importing; better create an intermediate, not student-accessible Moodle course for sharing instead
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, e-learning, lms, service-is-learning-materials-creation Tags: , , ,

Logging off fails on teacher station?

2011/12/08 Leave a comment
  1. Symptoms: Cannot log off.
  2. Diagnostics:
    1. Not even after taskkilling so far (got to around “S” in process name initials)). CIMG0003 - Copy
    2. When did this behavior first manifest itself? This week? MS-Office 2010 upgrade? Novell upgrade?
  3. Workaround: Current best workaround is power-cycling the computer.
  4. Solution: Problem seems to have disappeared. Cause and resolution unclear, though.
Categories: audience-is-IT-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-teachers, e-infrastructure, Glitches&Errors, Presenter-Computer Tags:

PowerPoint 2010 upgrade from 2007 disables setup show display on secondary screen

2011/12/06 Leave a comment
  1. Symptom: Without hardware changes (a visualizer that seemed to enter into the equation as an AV source seems to have been ruled out as culprit), PowerPoint cannot display show from primary right screen to secondary left screen.
  2. Cause: Upgrade to PowerPoint 2010 from 2007, but seems really an underlying video driver limitation that has given us grieve in our – admittedly uncommon: 1024*768 on secondary, projector-connected screen, dictated by the projector – setup before.
  3. Workaround: Make the 1024*768 left screen the primary screen.
    1. Upside: this allows to project the show to the class, but teacher can still move the underlying PowerPoint presentation onto the right screen (for previewing answers. The PowerPoint 2010 upgrade did fix the PowerPoint 2007 bug that interactive animations from PowerPoint 2003 where briefly revealed on slide load before they went into the default hidden state). CIMG0008 - Copy
    2. Downsides:
      1. Presenter view is still not possible, complains about seeing only one screen connected, even though “Check” button brings up the windows screen properties dual screen. CIMG0010 - Copy
      2. The Windows taskbar displays on the left screen, so teacher staging is visible to the class when projector is on (as it always was with a single screen. Only the  secondary right screen added a staging area for the teacher).
Categories: audience-is-IT-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, Glitches&Errors, Presenter-Computer Tags: , , , ,