audience-is-any | Thomas' Work Space

ScreenToGif Debugging: Object reference not set to an instance of an object (#7)

2014/07/03 plagwitz Leave a comment

Trying to contribute a tiny bit to the development of this great utility ScreenToGif:
1st version:

crashes on pressing “stop”:
the Log
Title: NullPointer in the Stop function 7
Message: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Source: ScreenToGif
TargetSite: Void Stop()
StackTrace: at ScreenToGif.Legacy.Stop()
Date/Time: 7/3/2014 12:55:16 PM
==============================

Newer version:

does not hang on “stop”

after adding overlay text (great new feature!),

seems to hang on pressing “Done” with “Analizing [sic] Unchanged Pixels”
crashes on pressing window close:
Maybe I was just not patient enough? for:

without adding overlay pixels:

seems to also take a long time (2-3minutes analyzing, without a progress bar, or any other indication that the program is still working and has not crashed – the couple of minutes “Processing” seem to go by faster, thanks to the progress bar and frame counter) for a 5fps 1073*810, about 300frames, but hey! It works:
Plus you can now open the resulting GIF file directly from the creator.
Actually, when I click “Stop” (I realize I am supposed to click “Close”), I still get a NullReferenceException (#9), probably should not:

No log has been outputted with the new version .

Categories: audience-is-IT-staff, e-infrastructure, Glitches&Errors, multimedia-recording, service-is-learning-materials-creation, service-is-testing-troubleshooting-debugging Tags: animated-gifs, ScreenToGif

Advanced language learners can test their English, German or Spanish proficiency in 3.5 minutes here using Exhale

2014/05/23 plagwitz 4 comments

Update: A new version of the Spanish vocabulary test is here, and the English vocabulary test has been updated here.

Go here and click English or German, or (also requiring only 3.5 minutes to take, but more for manually grading your test with this answer key) go here for Spanish, if you want to to take a simple quick vocabulary test that has been shown to correlate well with general proficiency. You can find more info here on English and German, and here on Spanish.

Categories: Advanced, assessments, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, English, German, Intermediate, Near-Native, Reading, service-is-assessing, Spanish, Vocabulary Tags: placement, testing

How to install and use a free dictionary/encyclopedia app in MS-Word 2013

2014/05/01 plagwitz Leave a comment

Installing is easy (our example is Wikipedia): Right-click a word, pick “define” from the context menu, the click download in the side pane for the app you choose.

Usage is also easy: To look up phrases, select, right-click and choose define:

To look up individual words, you can also just double-click the word:

You can also click “Expand”:

To install more dictionaries after the first one, click Insert / Apps for Office.

You can search for your L2 (too many to list):

It works for base forms:

But I cannot lemmatize (ouch):

I found out that when I go to Insert/ My Apps/ See all : , I can show more than one app in the side pane.

However,how o I change the default lookup that happens on double click on a word?

Categories: all-languages, audience-is-students, Dictionaries, English, German, office-software, Reading Tags: 2013, ms-office-apps, ms-office-store, MS-Word, wikipedia

Interpreting against audio files sources with live feedback in Sanako Study 1200

2014/04/25 plagwitz Leave a comment

How will we be recording
1. Individual recording
  1. Voice insert: student control how much time they have interpreting
    1. students can stop the source where they want, they can rewind and review the source, they can overwrite their initial interpretation, they can interpret at the speed they want.
    2. We could insert cues at sentence ends in the source; and also (but little need,) slow the source down or insert pauses
  2. Student track
    1. students have to follow along at the speed of the source can stop the source where they want, they can rewind and review the source; they can with some difficulty overwrite their initial interpretation/
    2. More difficult: We likely should slow the source down or insert pauses
2. Model imitation: like an exam,
  1. students all speak in parallel, without individual control
  2. Most difficult: We most likely need to slow the source audio down, including inserting pauses as "breathers")
What audio track will we be collecting?
1. If student saves manually, student can save either or both tracks , but need to be taught.
2. If model imitation, we collect only student recording.
3. If lock player/collect buffer, we collect both source and student track
4. Listener can focus on one track by controlling the balance during playback: https://thomasplagwitz.com/2014/03/31/how-to-manage-balance-on-stereo-audio-using-audacity-sanako-student-recorder-or-any-audio-player-on-windows/
5. Listener can also split the audio tracks (= delete the source track),
  1. more easily (file / save as) in the sanako recorder
  2. More
Teacher listening in
1. Is always possible,
  1. just click the student icon in the classroom layout
  2. or use screen control / autoscan: the audio switches with the screen, this has a bit of overhead, and our computers are network are not the fastest, but we made some changes to optimize speed; best reserved for when you also need to see the student’s screen.
Teacher speaking: Teacher providing on-the-fly feedback via "Discuss":
1. Playlist Launch and open (goo.gl/2awRG/): then you can stop each individual student (students do not work in sync, remote-controlled) .
2. Model imitation (goo.gl/ZL7DG/) : then you cannot talk to one (all students record in sync).
3. Teacher providing non-live feedback :
  1. Teacher can provide aural feedback later when grading the student submissions from your office pc:
    1. How a teacher can use Sanako voice insert to easily add spoken comments to students’ Sanako oral proficiency exams- step–by step
    2. We recorded here how it is being done for Business Spanish: Protected: How a teacher can give students aural feedback on oral exams using the Sanako Study 1200 Lite Recorder
    3. For that voice-insert, you need to install the Sanako Recorder on your office PC.

Categories: audience-is-teachers, digital-audio-lab, Interpreting, Speaking Tags: sanako-study-1200

Slowing source audio for interpreting classes in the digital audio lab

2014/04/25 plagwitz Leave a comment

To judge from listening to Simult. Lesson 1, text 2 on Acebo Interpreter’s Edge (ISBN 1880594323), I am wondering whether some of our students (= personalization) would need this audio to be simplified, to gain the benefit of a well-adjusted i+1? I can pre-process the audio :
1. Where the flatlines = natural pauses are in above graph, insert a audio signal as where students can press voice insert recording, Example:
2. We can also insert a pause and a cue at the beginning and end to set students a limit how long they can interpret, but if students operate the player manually, there is no teacher control and no exam condition, and the students having to manage the technology tends to distract from the language practice.
3. Slow down the audio without changing the pitch (just have to make sure not to overdo it, else will sound like drunken speech – my time stretching software would be able to avoid “drunken speech” syndrome, but I have not been able to work on it since briefly for IALLT in Summer 2011 for 3 years now…)
4. We can use this adjusted with the Sanako grouping feature to personalize instruction (find the right i+1 for each of your student, useful if there are considerable variations in their proficiency): How to group students into sessions (in 3 different ways) goo.gl/JgXUP/.

Categories: audience-is-teachers, digital-audio-lab, Interpreting, Listening, service-is-learning-materials-creation, Speaking Tags: audacity, differentiated-instruction, sanako-study-1200, timestretching

Student email in Office365/Outlook.com slow on reception desk computers

2014/04/09 plagwitz Leave a comment

Problem: Since last week (or so; interestingly, only individual users seem to have been affected at first), we seem to experiencing regular (but not consistent) issues with meeting requests mostly
1. slowness
2. browser-specific behavior
  1. internet explorer 9: crashes
  2. chrome: crashes
  3. Firefox: (sometimes just seems to hang, with some coercion can bring up an “unresponsive script” warning dialogue that a script is hanging:
Workaround:
1. Best so far: if you see the Firefox warning dialogue, check “do not warn again” and click on “continue”(?)
2. we will try to look into common browser configuration (like popup blockers).
Root cause: ?

Firefox provides only this help on unresponsive script error;
the slowness could be in the actual script, on the client, in the network, on the server…