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How to access your Saba Centra session outside of Moodle

2013/08/19 Leave a comment
    1. Watch this video on how Access a session link or create a new Centra event on http://centra.uncc.edu instead of Moodle: http://screencast.com/t/4glUbhJs. This shows you how to:
    2. if you already create the event:
      1. send guest links to your already
      2. lead : clip_image002[4]
    3. create a Saba-Centra event
    4. Information is courtesy of the CTL. I am just passing this on to LRC users, although I have not heard of issues with our first Saba Centra classes this morning.
Categories: audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, Distance-education-format-is-Synchronous, e-learning, Glitches&Errors, service-is-testing-troubleshooting-debugging, web-conferencing Tags: ,

LRC hosts help desk for students to register on their McGraw-Hill Connect online textbook website

2013/08/17 Leave a comment

This special Help desk will be sign-posted in the LRC on the day of the events. For now, consult the calendar of the iMacsand Group Room1, 2 (see https://thomasplagwitz.com/2012/11/04/how-to-view-lrc-hoursevents/).Here is the documentation:

Categories: announcements, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, service-is-configuring-learning-tools, service-is-training, textbooks, websites Tags:

Demo of Puntos de partida on the McGraw-Hill Connect online platform for Hybrid Spanish teachers

2013/08/17 Leave a comment
  1. For your review:
  2. Highlights:
    1. Learnsmart: adaptive learning content that asks for and tracks for the teacher and adapts for the student to students metacognitive confidence about her knowledge before testing it
    2. In a flipped classroom setting, highest failure areas in the online learning results can be easily seen by the teacher to adapt the next class meeting.
Categories: assignments, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, grading, Screencasts, service-is-documenting, Spanish, textbooks, training, websites, workshops Tags: , , ,

LRC Fall 2013 announcements

2013/08/16 Leave a comment
  1. The LRC has upgraded to Windows 7 and Office 2010.
    1. Benefits:
      1. Your students can use the computer interface from the default English to  about 20 languages, including non-Western.
      2. Your students can also use speech recognition (in English, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, and Spanish), e.g. for dictation exercises (Example videos:  very bad French, decent German). Students can train the computers to their voice and take their training data with them.  I’d love to explore with you possibilities for pronunciation practice with automated intelligent feedback .
      3. Your students can use old and new MS-Office Proofing tools.
    1. Caveat:  W are still trying to restore some former functionality (e.g. no Google Arabic, Farsi and Russian IME etc.). Please bear with us while we deal with the new college tech infrastructure. 
  1. The LRC has upgraded its Sanako digital audio lab software.
    1. Because of budgetary constraints, our software agreement had to end  with version 5 . This summer, the vendor presented us with a free upgrade to version 7, with compliments for my blog posts about using the Sanako.
    2. Benefits:  We decided to implement the upgrade lest you and your students need relearn in the middle of the academic year and since Version 7 adds valuable language learning :  which I would love to explore with you: Vocabulary exercises  and Pronunciation exercises which  make use of the computerized text-to-speech capabilities we just implemented with windows 7
    3. Caveats:
      1. We are still trying to restore the old Sanako configuration. E.g. Pairing recording is not working currently.
      2. I hope to upgrade my LanglabEmailer software to support the new version after the term is underway.
  1. For students attending distance classes with Saba Centra in the LRC, microphone audio on listening stations fixed, no more 30 minute delay  when joining class.
  1. UNCC is upgrading to Moodle 2. The CTL is investigating how the LRC Metacourses for audio materials I created can be converted to Moodle 2. If you need the audio materials from the metacourses,  we can help you upload them into your individual courses temporarily. 
  1. Classroom AV: We found a temporary workaround for the projector image quality and are investigating permanent solutions. Currently no VHS video and doc cam display during classes  (we would love to  scan your text anyway and distribute them digitally).
  2. LRC Calendars and Booking:
    1. In the LRC Room and Equipment List, your will notice some new film studies equipment (calendars requested from ITS).
    2. We added new calendars to the Quicklinks on LRC home page :  Tutors and LRC assistants. Please keep checking how we fill these open positions over the next few weeks, and use the help they can offer you.
    3. When booking, you can
      1. get help at the LRC reception desk;
      2. book yourself  from anywhere,
      3. or have your “delegate” book (planned; setup requested from ITS).
  1. I will continue next week with the biweekly Sanako Clinic to aid teachers with their LRC class preparation. Please consult the LRC calendar if you want to drop in, or reschedule one with me for your needs.
  2. I am also offering LRC introductions for your class during the week 2 and 3 on a “first-come, first-served” basis, and à la carte (I suggest consulting a one-sheet menu with an overview  of LRC facilities that I am  preparing.) Please let me know if you are interested.
Categories: announcements, audience-is-teachers, Listening, service-is-tutoring, Speaking, Vocabulary, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , ,

How to share your calendar from Outlook (desktop)

2013/08/15 Leave a comment
  1. Click “Share Calendar”:image
  2. Choose your settings, then click “Send”: image
  3. Or you could just rely on the campus default and have colleagues use the “scheduling assistant” in the “meeting request”,
  4. After adding participants image
  5. their calendars can be seen – in timeline format, good for comparing availability of multiple meeting participants –after you click on ribbon item: “scheduling assistant”. image 
  6. In current OWA., “meeting request” and “scheduling assistant”  look a bit different from/reduced (including permissions) compared to Outlook, as you can see here e.g..
Categories: audience-is-teachers, e-infrastructure, office-software Tags: , , , ,

Example 6: How even a false beginner can work with foreign language Speech recognition on Windows 7 Enterprise

2013/08/14 Leave a comment
  1. Executive summary: Don’t let initial poor speech recognition results discourage your from using this feature. Results will much improve if you go through a few minutes of the built-in voice training for speech recognition. Like in the last 30 seconds of this video.
  2. With the upgrade to Windows 7 Enterprise in the LRC – and the continued availability of high-quality Sanako headphones on the majority of LRC PCs – , we can now offer speech recognition in a number of foreign languages – including French.
  3. This feature can be used for language learning exercises, including dictation, like in this example. How robust is windows 7 speech recognition?
  4. You can expose yourself to some embarrassingly bad French in this screencast – and that is the point. (My French is limited to a mere 2 high school years of 3-hour per week voluntary French studies, more than 30 years ago, no practice since).
  5. The screencast shows how even a (false) beginner can,
    1. 0:00-1:00: from terrible initial results,
    2. 11:45-12:10: considerably improve (not make perfect!) the foreign language (here French) speech recognition on Windows 7,
    3. 1:00-10:40: by going through the built-in voice training.
  6. The LRC computers are “frozen”between reboots, but students still need to train them only once, since they can back up and restore their training data easily.
  8. (This is not proof of the overall validity of the recognition – for that, you are better off watching this screencast with Windows 7 Enterprise speech recognition in German).
Categories: assignments, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, French, Operating-system, Screencasts, Speaking Tags: ,

Sanako student lite recorder needs reconfiguration

2013/08/06 Leave a comment
  1. Because of a misconfiguration, students now always have to make these two changes (on teacher screen) from the default configuration (on student screen) before their Sanako will become operational:
  2. image
  3. If you made the default, but wrong choice “Lite recorder”, you will get stuck with this:
  4. image
  5. To get out of it, click button:”close”and start over.
Categories: audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, Glitches&Errors, Uncategorized Tags: ,

How to use the Langlabemailer

2013/06/07 Leave a comment
  1. If teachers want to change the default action of the LangLabEmailer, they can add the following labels to the folder name when they save  their assessments and assignments (normally an option in the digital language lab software; or simply rename the folder afterwards):
    1. _noemailing: as label says;
    2. [not implemented]: _nostudentemailing, as name says, but see Feature Request for the LangLabEmailer;
    3. _noteacheremailing: as label says.
  2. Next: TBA:Troubleshooting. Or up Langlabemailer (table of contents)
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, audience-is-teachers Tags: ,