Genre-is-any | Thomas' Work Space

Sanako Study 1200 student in-class web browsing activity caveats, errors&glitches

2012/03/01 plagwitz Leave a comment

If we put the full URI of the website (e.g. http://www.dict.cc), we experience the student web browser not opening up (either hanging at "verifying access" dialogue or empty browser window and definitely no table of contents browser window). Workaround: put just e.g. http://www.dict.cc.
CAVEAT: make sure you actually know which sub-pages will be loaded (and thus need to be allowable) during your web browsing activity
1. the address-bar is misleading when a your pages are loaded within a frameset. like in this example: . In this example, allow all links in the left menu.
2. your list of allowable pages should cover the entire workflow, including feedback pages that the student may receive
3. TBA: it is sufficient for a web page to be allowed/blocked if its URL string contains your listed URL as a substring
We have observed `the following issues:
1. that the sanako web browser may hang, on startup or later, but a common workaround is closing a hanging sanako web browser which will reopen it on the table of contents page.
2. that the “verifying access rights” window can disappear quickly, but may delay web browsing for a considerable time before your students are allowed to browse to a web page – please allow time for that (we are investigating whether the size of the class or the type of allow/deny list or individual allow/deny links cause this delay).
3. that the sanako web browser on some computers (despite them have identical software images?) arbitrarily opening new windows which muddies the waters considerably – and also seems to require more time for the verifying –, but does not make the exercise fail:

Categories: audience-is-teachers, classroom-management-system, Glitches&Errors Tags: sanako-study-1200, web-browsing-activity

Protected: Mock exam for Spanish combines various learning technologies in the LRC

2012/03/01 plagwitz Enter your password to view comments.

Face-to-face-teaching exam using Sanako Study 1200

2012/03/01 plagwitz Leave a comment

Sanako Exam is an add-on at additional cost and not currently available in our setup.
1. Sanako Exam teacher-created content is stored locally, file management beyond that is up to the user. This makes such polls less portable, but potentially sharing within a department might be easier.
2. Student Results can be identified by student, and saved.
View here a screencast demo of how a Sanako Exam can be
1. authored and
2. deployed.

Categories: audience-is-teachers, classroom-management-system, documentation, e-learning, Institution-is-Aston-University, Presenter-Computer, proposals, Screencasts, Student-Computers, Study-program-is-any Tags: Exam-Module, sanako-study-1200

Replace clickers with students’ phones using PollEverywhere.com

2012/02/29 plagwitz Leave a comment

PollEverywhere.com allows teachers to set up polls with answer options that students choose by sending a number code as text message.
Pro’s
1. Freemium.
2. Low- to No- university infrastructure requirements. Best-used in a non-computerized classroom or during startup time of students’ computers.
3. Content can be managed online.
Con’s
1. Freemium:
  1. “You get what you pay for”. “You may be the business”. What happens with your data
  2. Not free for students unless you consider a phone plan that comes with unlimited texts free. With increasing use of other messaging options over SMS, that may be not a given even if you deal mostly with an affluent student population.
2. Low- to No- university infrastructure requirements:
  1. you are relying on students providing the infrastructure. Are they better keeping their phones in service (on them, charged, turned on) than we are keeping our computer labs up and running?
  2. you are relying on mobile network operators, including the choices of operator that your students made.
3. Anonymous: Not useful for assessment purposes.
4. The number codes are long (6 digits, while 1 could be sufficient).
Competitors
1. The university has a clicker infrastructure which is partially outsourced to students (purchase and bring).
2. The LRC has a Classroom Management system infrastructure which supports clicker-like activities.
  1. Sanako Study 1200 comes with Live Feedback and Voting.
  2. NetOp School comes with an examination/polling feature also.

Categories: audience-is-teachers, documentation, e-learning, mobile-phones, Screencasts, Student-response-systems-AKA-clickers, Study-program-is-any, websites

How to get sound on listening station computers by increasing the volume-levels

2012/02/29 plagwitz Leave a comment

On the listening stations, if you have the headsets plugged into the connectors on the rear of the computer, and hear no sound, you may have the volume set to too low.
Go to (1) control panel, (2) icon:sound, (3) tab:audio, (4)button:volume
in the mixer dialogue, (6) menu:options, make sure that all the (6) volume slider controls are checked, i.e. shown, click “OK”.
Move the volume sliders up for WAVE and SW SYNTH