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Replacing the Sanako Authoring Tool

2012/10/18 2 comments
  1. 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?
  2. Workaround:
    1. collect your files in my Word  template (left part of screenshot) like before (question/cue, repetitions, response pause time), including your images
    2. Save your MS-Word files as html.
    3. 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.

      4. authoring-tool-replacing

  3. 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….
Categories: audience-is-teachers, digital-audio-lab, e-languages, Presenter-Computer, service-is-learning-materials-creation, service-is-testing-troubleshooting-debugging, training Tags: ,

Mylanguagelab.com “Authentication failed” glitch in audio recorder

2012/10/18 Leave a comment

Common error in IE8 when students review their test before submitting. No worries, the student recording is not lost. Still, what is the solution?

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, Glitches&Errors, service-is-evaluating-learning-tools, Student-Computers, textbooks, websites Tags:

How teachers can use MS-Word Mail merge with filtering and if-then-else to quickly provide personalized feedback based to students depending on grade

2012/10/18 Leave a comment
  1. Intelligence is adaptation to feedback. Providing personalized feedback to students depending on their performance could make student development much more successful.
  2. Intelligence is expensive. How can the teacher provide personalized feedback time-efficiently? Likely by blending artificial intelligence with her own.
  3. Sounds like Sci-fi? A great practical example, using existing familiar IT infrastructure, you can find here:  MS-Word’s (2010; 2007 works the same) mail merge feature, on the basis of a downloaded Moodle gradebook with student results, can customize semi-automatically your reusable feedback email message template to individual recipient’s performance and needs:
  4. Step-by-step instructions:  http://teaching.uncc.edu/moodle/grade-book/how-to/using-mail-merge-grade-book.
  5. Screencast of the webinar instruction: http://mt202.sabameeting.com/SiteRoots/main/User/GuestAttend.jhtml?pb=true&s_guid=0000018151460000013a0a22cfb39443&domain=/Customers/uncc&domain=/
Categories: audience-is-teachers, e-learning, grading, lms, office-software, Screencasts, step-by-step-guides Tags:

Arabic LRC tutor training Fall 2012

2012/10/17 Leave a comment

image

Categories: Arabic, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, Dictionaries, e-languages, Listening, Reading, service-is-tutoring, Speaking, training, Vocabulary, Writing

How the LRC can help you proctoring your computer-based make-up exams

2012/10/15 Leave a comment
  1. We are testing
    1. whether we can offer proctored make-up exams for students that missed scheduled (publisher website- or Moodle-based)  computerized exams that were held in the LRC. We have not been given additional resources for this service, so we have to set it up as smoothly as possible – as you and your students will desire also.
    2. Alternatively, you could administer your exam in your office, like you used to, but now using your office computer (where presumably you tested the exam in the first place – the LRC can temporarily borrow you a headset
    3. or we could group schedule all remaining students  for a make-up in the main LRC classroom maybe during class meeting (likely more secure and quicker, but taking away from contact hours). Both the presence of the teacher and the lrc director may be required.
  2. The teacher  gives
    1. to  the studentthe exam’s
        1.  step-by-step instructions (depends on your exam website, look at my example here regarding mylanguagelab  tests (version 2012-10): goo.gl/g8q5g),
        2. or, if the exam is self-explanatory to the student (nothing ever seems to be, so if you want to go this route, please be prepared to troubleshoot with your students, the LRC can only help with making step-by-step guides beforehand), the link, i.e. login (e.g. mygermanlab: goo.gl/JUSUC) and exact location  of exam (either path for  manual browsing  or (preferably, if at all possible) a direct link);
        3. duration
        4. deadline
    2. to the LRC coordinator the exam password.  The LRC coordinator publishes the password in LRC Moodle forum “sticky notes” (to which only LRC staff has access).
  3. The student
    1. From her NINERMAILcalendar
      1. prepares a new/meeting request,
        1. “subject: [your course number] make-up exam”,
        2. to “resource:” lrcroomcoed433c @uncc.edu AND lrcroomcoed433d@uncc.edu, our small group rooms,
        3. uses the tab:”scheduling assistant” to find a free (= white, not-blocked) time-slot with the exam duration and before the exam deadline,
        4. and deletes that group room that s/he does not need before actual sending the meeting request (For the quietest experience, s/he should also stir clear of tutoring hours, subject:”up to ####” in the other group room http://mail.uncc.edu/owa/calendar/LRCRoomCOED433c@uncc.edu/Calendar/calendar.html  http://mail.uncc.edu/owa/calendar/LRCRoomCOED433d@uncc.edu/Calendar/calendar.html ).
        5. The student can get help withmaking this meeting request at the LRC reception desk, including booking the room on the fly, but no group room may be immediately available for walk-in clients).
      2. cancels the meeting request if s/he changes her mind, to make the room available to other (we record the check-in time to report offenders who prevent other students from taking their make-up exams). Only in our 2 group rooms next to the reception desk the student can be (loosely) monitored by LRC assistants serving as proctors from behind the reception desk. We can test before term start if your website can use additional security features like Sanako controlled web browsing or Respondus Lockdown browser.
    2. comes to the LRC  shortly before her scheduled time slot,
      1. logs in on the computer in her group room first (to speed things up);
      2. opens her meeting request on the reception desk computer to receive a check-in code from the LRC assistant into the meeting request and “sends update”;
      3. places any personal possession behind the reception desk;
      4. opens the exam instructions (e.g. goo.gl/g8q5g) on the group room computer;
      5. Following instructions therein, goes to the exam website on the group room computer, opens the exam, so that the LRC assistant can type in the password from the LRC Moodle forum “sticky notes” without letting the examinee know the password.
      6. TBA: Will we require  students to get a checkout code? The LRC assistants are not in a position to enforce exam deadlines; your testing software likely should be.
Categories: assessments, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, policies, Reception-desk, service-is-assessing, small-group-work-spaces, step-by-step-guides Tags: ,

How teachers randomly pair and record students over their headphones with Sanako Study 1200–the ultimate training summary…

2012/10/12 Leave a comment

…thanks to animated gGIFs. Slower? 050ms, 075ms, 100ms, 200ms, 300ms, 400ms,500ms, 600ms, 700ms, 800ms,900ms, 1000ms. Load the speed of your choosing into the left screen of the teacher station before trying to pair your students, with the window active, press F5 to restart the animation from the beginning at any time:

Categories: animated-GIFs, audience-is-teachers, multimedia-recording, training Tags: ,

Ipatrainer.com community provides free phonetic transcription tables with sounds and exercises

2012/10/11 Leave a comment
  1. This is looking good, but …
    1. There seem to be some coding issues, I am getting server errors 500 after registering.
    2. The site is advertisement-based.
    3. There is no content beyond the IPA sound which would put these bare basics in phonetics into language learning context and practice.
  2. Site Contains:
    1. tables for teaching your language – complete with phonetic symbols and sound samples image
    2. and exercises for your students  (e.g. Memory games, Identifying characters imageimageimageimage, places, image and sounds.
  3. You can
    1. Create your own, after free registration,
    2. or assign one of the ones from many other teachers.
      1. Most popular ones are listed here:  http://www.ipatrainer.com/user/site/?language=, and if the use numbers are accurate, there must be really some serious IPA learning going on here…
      2. I see no way to browse other tables without having the username of the teacher who created and assigned it.
  4. There is also a phonetic writer.
  5. And a user forum, in its infancy.
Categories: Arabic, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, learning-materials, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, service-is-evaluating-learning-tools, Spanish, Speaking, Swahili, websites, Yoruba Tags: ,

Delete the Flash Global Settings if the iMacs webcam displays black frame only

2012/10/11 Leave a comment
  1. Problem: Safari and (not recommended after last testing round) Firefox both hung on iMAC6 when a student tried to do a Moodle Kaltura Webcam assignment and got to the built-in ISight camera display page.
  2. Cause: maybe a Flash security problem accessing the web cam? maybe security dialogue was not answered by the student correctly earlier, and the “preference”stored in her account?
    1. Solution (presumably): System started working again after I deleted the Flash Global settings, by right-clicking on the webcam video preview window like so: CIMG0020

  3. imageimage

  4. Ceterum censeo that we need a computer management infrastructure if we want to use MACs for language learning technology. Faronics-Deepfreeze would have prevented this problem, provided we have a software imaging system (CASPER coming up apparently) that can let us start with a usable image, and the staff time to learn and configure 2 usable OS images and dual usable computer management infrastructures. TCO now > TCO dual OS infrastructure > TCO web cams for 45 PCs. 
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, Glitches&Errors, iMacs, Institution-is-University-of-North-Carolina-Charlotte, lms, multimedia-recording Tags: , , , ,