audience-is-any | Thomas' Work Space

What does your computerized classroom look like to you?

2013/03/22 plagwitz Leave a comment

Language Lab: Silly fun for crash test dummies, or were you hoping to get there faster than on foot?

Categories: audience-is-teachers, digital-audio-lab, marketing, Photos

What does your computerized classroom feel like?

2013/03/22 plagwitz Leave a comment

Language lab: You can get there fast, but only if you know how to land, not crash.

Categories: audience-is-teachers, digital-audio-lab, marketing, Photos

Online Tool to compress/decompress GUIDs

2013/03/21 plagwitz Leave a comment

Could not immediately find one when I searched: Enjoy. My formula will not trim leading and trailing spaces from your input. You may have to enter the blue result field, move the cursor to the end of the formula and hit enter for the result cell to update. Download the sheet to use in Excel.

Categories: audience-is-IT-staff, e-infrastructure, Spreadsheets Tags: CLSID, GUID, guids, windows, windows-installer, windows-registry

Protected: Sanako teacher station stuck on trying to verify the license

2013/03/18 plagwitz Enter your password to view comments.

Categories: audience-is-IT-staff, Glitches&Errors Tags: licensing-server, sanako-study-1200

LRC training animated-gifs

2013/03/18 plagwitz Leave a comment

This link gives you a nice overview list of the LRC animated gif’s for training.
1. Chrome users need to install this first, still can view get only a subset.
2. Neither Chrome nor Firefox offer a search-within like Internet Explorer.
They are meant for display on the left lrc teacher station screen.
whether you display them as student training material on the projector
or display them as guidance for yourself
Did you miss something?
1. The animated gif’s cycle in an infinite loop. Just wait for the next round.
2. If you want to restart the video now, press F5 or click the Refresh button in your browser address bar.
3. Or use one of the slower speed videos I made.
I also made clickable versions that you can hand-browse (more control. More effort also).

Categories: animated-GIFs, audience-is-teachers, e-learning, Presenter-Computer, table-of-contents, training, web-browsers Tags: rss

Protected: Sanako Study 1200 hangs on “changing control method”?

2013/03/13 plagwitz Enter your password to view comments.

Categories: audience-is-IT-staff, digital-audio-lab, e-languages, Glitches&Errors, Screencasts, service-is-testing-troubleshooting-debugging Tags: remote-control, sanako-study-1200

How to prevent squealing noise on the brown headphones AKA audio feedback

2013/03/13 plagwitz Leave a comment

Symptom:high-pitched squealing sound, usually when logged into the computers along the wall (listening stations –other computers have different black headsets which are not as prone to this problem,) and not wearing the headset.
Short answer: LRC Assistants will let the student who causes the squealing noise know:
1. ”Turn the volume knob on the brown headset down!”
2. “You can turn it back up once you have put the headset on”.
Explanation:
1. The brown (analog) headsets on the listening stations exhibit this squealing noise when
  1. the students do not wear the headset
  2. AND the microphone is too close to the headphone speakers
  3. AND the headphone volumne knob is turned up to high.
2. This phenomenon is called an (audio) feedback loop:
  1. The headphone speakers echo what is spoken into the microphone (this is called sidetone).
  2. This is an important language learning feature (helps you control your pronunciation).
  3. However, it spirals out of control when students do not wear the headset. They also need to “wear the headset!” (general recommendation in the language lab) to have the benefit of the sidetone (and then their head insulates between speakers and microphones).

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-students, digital-audio-lab, Glitches&Errors, Listening-Stations Tags: audio, FAQs, sanako-stuy-1200

Have I reserved the LRC? 10 safety nets for you, plus a bonus

2013/03/12 plagwitz Leave a comment

No need to use them all: The first one you notice suffices. But we hope 1 of the 10 will work for you. Starting (that is why it is in explained in How to book LRC resources – explained in one screenshot: “Book me!”versus “Leave me alone!”) with the tab: “scheduling assistant” in your “meeting request” itself before you try to book the room: It tells you when the room is free (white or blank along the timeline). Don’t try to book the room when the room’s timeline is not blank and the hovering tool tip tells you “Busy”: It is futile.
But if you do, there will be more alerts: Immediately after you send the meeting request, a so-called “toast” (think of a slice of bread jumping out of a toaster – depending on email client you are using for NINERMAIL in the lower or upper right of the screen) flashes briefly with the automatic response from the room attendant. The response has in the subject : “Accepted or Denied” (you will not get “Tentative” from the room like in the example – UPDATE: only faculty and staff used to receive such toasts, but with the next upgrade of NINERMAIL, students will also!):
Never mind if you miss the toast: it just notified you that the automatic response from the room attendant went into your inbox. You can see it on top there (here I unfolded it). It tells you in the subject and in bold in the body whether your booking was accepted or denied. If you have questions about these messages, you can forward them with your comment like any other email (no point in responding though). This does NOT remove the appointment from your own NINERRMAIL calendar (makes sense if you think about it: You still have your appointment (exam etc.), just the room can not be part of it).
If you miss that also, go to the LRC homepage and click on “Hours&Events” under the Quick links in the upper left (How to view ?)
You do not even need to visit the LRC home page: you have privileged access to the the LRC hours end events calendar from your NINERMAIL, if you subscribe to it there (shortcut: start @ #3 armed with this link:http://mail.uncc.edu/owa/calendar/LRCRoomCOED434@uncc.edu/Calendar/calendar.ics).
You can do all this under guidance at the LRC reception desk: We try to have 1-3 name-tagged student assistants there at all times during LRC opening hours, 8 eyes see more than 2.
One day after your booking, you will also be able to see your reservation (if successful!) on the : .
If in doubt, do all this well before your class takes place.
Take a training: ITS supports NINERMAIL and CTL teaches Taming your inbox.
Bonus: In the unfortunate event of a “Denied” response to your booking request, if it is not just an AM/PM error or similar which you can easily correct, the response includes information on the prior reservation, organizer, and email address.
1. Why not email the colleague (click on the underlined name of the colleague that booked the LRC before you) from right here and see whether you both can rearrange? Remember: Sharing is caring.
2. There is a departmental initiative to reschedule entire classes that might conflict over the use of the LRC. Talk to the departmental office well before the the prior term ends (i.e. before next term’s class schedules are finalized).
3. Still confused? At this point, talk to LRC permanent staff who will go through above list with you. Please understand that the LRC staff cannot cancel other faculty’s bookings, we only extended the availability and bookability of the LRC which is readily available and easily bookable at many times during each term.