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Quia, centro student access problems

2011/09/01 Leave a comment
Categories: Glitches&Errors

The new way of booking LRC rooms and equipment from Fall 2011: How?

2011/08/31 7 comments
  1. Read here why.
  2. You can book LRC resources like rooms, equipment, even tutor hours:
    1. as
      1. faculty & staff: from [MS-Outlook“(pretty much) whatever version”]:
        1. on the desktop Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010 or Outlook 2011 (preferred option for faculty & staff) – if  you are familiar with Outlook Desktop, it is the recommended tool
        2. or at http://mail.uncc.edu, using Outlook Web Access (OWA) at http://mail.uncc.edu, in most browsers – we, however, decided to focus our training of new users on OWA.
      2. student: in Outlook Live (the only option for students) at Ninermail or http://outlook.com,
    2. through
      1. creating from menu:”new” a “meeting request” owa-menu-new-meeting-request(for details see  How to book an LRC resource)
      2. and adding a resource (or several: temporarily, to compare which one’s availability fits best into your own schedule; permanently, to book multiple items at once, as long as all start/end times are the same)  by clicking on the   “Resources”, like here owa-window-new-meeting-request-resources-marked
        1. all LRC resources names begin with “LRC” and will appear if your search the Global address list (GAL) for “LRC”; all bookable rooms and equipment have been given an email address listed here): owa-meeting-request-scheduling-assistant-address-book-search-global-marked2
        2. e.g. to book the LRC main classroom, send to LRC RoomCOED434 class <LRCRoomCOED434@uncc.edu>
      3. and adding other meeting participants, e.g. co-teachers of your class, or LRC staff if you need more than routine support
        1. If you hold a class in the LRC, to remind students of the new location, teachers could also try and add your class, if you made a convenient group of all students in your class in Outlook.
      4. and, from the “scheduling assistant”, choosing a time when the room/equipment is free (= blank), not blocked (= solid or hatched)  (and all participants), scheduling-assistant-timelines-marked-no-yes
      5. and adding a subject with class number and possibly special instructions: 
        1. if you do not allow self-access students on free seats: *EMPTY ROOM*
        2. if you do not allow tutoring in corners: *NO TUTORING*:
        3. I will ask the LRC assistants (unfortunately we have large gaps in the schedule) and tutors to load and check the lrcroomcoed434@uncc.edu so that tutors can relocate with their students on time.
      6. and sending it  (like email to a person) to the room or equipment
  3. What happens next?
    1. await responses: Read more in What happens after the meeting request.
    2. monitor calendars: you can link into your OWA the calendars of those resources that you use frequently (e.g. a piece of equipment, an LRC classroom or tutor office for the language you study). Read more in View Calendars.
  4. If you need to release the resource, i.e. to free up the room/equipment for others to use – esp. helpful when you have the LRC booked for your entire class, but won’t meet there this week), open the meeting form your calendar and click in the top menu the buttons cancel  series, ”send update” owa-cancel-calendar-meeting-occurance-open-ribbon-cancel (for details see how to cancel a meeting request)
  5. SummaryList of Links:
      1. this intro
      2. list of LRC resources that you can book or check out
      3. request resource meeting
      4. change meeting request
      5. cancel meeting resource
      6. resources in OWA’s Global Address List (GAL)
      7. scheduling assistant, avoiding scheduling conflicts
      8. resource responses
      9. resource calendars for staff, and for students
      10. equipment check-out/in
      11.  why?
  6. For further reading: Microsoft explains Scheduling for Outlook Livein more detail here:
    1. Request a meeting
    2. Use the Schedule Assistant
    3. you can also Create an appointment or Set a Repeating Item
    4. Cancel a (single/recurring) meeting
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-infrastructure, service-is-library, training Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Quia Options for Grading in course or book or exercise

2011/08/31 Leave a comment
  1. The instructor workstation features prominently the tab : options.Quia - Instructor Workstation_course-options
  2. if you go into grading, you see that not all options can be changed from here.
  3. Quia - Instructor Workstation_course-options-grading
  4. However, when customizing your book, you may have already found the options next to  each individual exercise that allow you to change Spelling/Case sensitivityquia-grading-options-per-exercises
  5. However, if you go to the tab: book, you will find more options there, including how you can change Feedback and Spelling/Case sensitivity for the entire book instead of individual exercises: Quia - Instructor Workstation_book-options
Categories: e-languages, learning-materials, service-is-evaluating-learning-tools, textbooks Tags: ,

Centro/Quia student access problems at term start: What OneKey?

2011/08/31 Leave a comment
  1. Our Pearson/Prentice Hall textbook comes with online component, access to which is purchased in the University bookstore.
  2. The textbook comes with a setup brochure (OneKey, yellow) that states: “Go to www.prenhall.com/onekey, click OneKey for Students, then click Getting Started, and select CourseCompass. Follow the on-screen instructions to register for CourseCompass”.
  3. onekey
  4. This page is unresponsive und  forwards to http://www.pearsonhighered.com/
  5. pearson
  6. Cute but I have no idea how to continue from here.
  7. if you try to enter the “CourseCompass Access Code” by browsing manually to www.coursecompass.com, you will read: “CourseCompass is now MyLab and Mastering If you had a CourseCompass account, it works with MyLab / Mastering. Sign in now.” Maybe this change broke the entire signup process?
  8. 100000s of these packages must have been sold by now, each costing 100s of dollars. Why do students and teachers have to waste entire class hours, each worth also 100s of dollars, on banging their head against this pay wall even after they paid?
  9. When reading the instructions, I found it necessary to highlight the steps our students need to take:
    1. CourseCompass Access Code
    2. CourseCompass Course ID
    3. Account username and password
    4. Quia Student Book Key
    5. Quia Course Code
  10.   Wow!  With my teacher login, I can see that the online content which is protected by this pay wall is still the same literally translated print lab manual/workbook material. Must be decades old now.
Categories: learning-materials, textbooks Tags: , , , , ,

How to more easily (student permissions, term recycle) distribute learning materials using Moodle metacourses

2011/08/31 Leave a comment

Problem: Audio CDs are an outdated medium, file shares and web drive interfaces to them are unfamiliar to both students and teachers and difficult to browse. Moodle, the familiar learning environment, by default, requires teachers to manage textbook audio and other learning materials within each Moodle course = section times term. This leads to a lot of duplication, both in effort and storage.

Solution: Moodle Metacourses can serve, maybe not as a solution (only a poor man’s eRepository), but as  a workaround. Read here, how:

Moodle metacourses, part I: The Pedagogy: Do you want the LRC to distribute files for
your courses through Moodle?

Moodle metacourses, part II: The technology

Moodle Metacourses, part III: The  support workflow: File-renaming

Moodle Metacourses, part IV: The support workflow: Transcoding audio learning materials

Moodle metacourses, part V: The support workflow: Uploading

LRC learning resources Moodle metacourses: Our list

LRC online language learning materials: the list

Categories: learning-materials, lms, service-is-library Tags: ,

Moodle Metacourses, part III: The support workflow: File-renaming

2011/08/31 2 comments

We discussed file renaming utilities in an earlier post. Here are some more practical tips:

Limitations: While both utilities can accept Windows Search Result sets, drag-drop seems limited to fewer than 256 files at a time (on my Vista 64-bit – but that is not an OS limitation, since MS Expression Encoder can accept a drag-and-drop of all over 3.5k files that need reencoding).

Workaround: both utilities have a folder-select, and Renamer in addition accepts file masks, which can mimic some basic searches:

image_thumb[2]

Bulk Rename Issue: While it allows for “Select from Clipboard” which you can use with the Windows “Copy as Path”/”Send  to Clipboard as Name” feature which works with search result sets. However, I could not get this feature to work (neither with the default “” around the path nor, after removing them manually,  without).

Renamer, Issue: rule, clean up, strip-out-content-of-brackets-does-not-what-it-should:

Renamer-translit-anglicize-foreign-language-diacritics: unfortunately still recommended for technical reasons; Renamer has presets, e.g. German here: TBA

Only one preset can be inserted add a time (overwrites previous) – but you can build your list with copy/paste from/to this text box and persist it to disk to load it later, just like the search rules – an extremely handy feature.

Categories: e-languages, e-learning, erepository, learning-materials Tags: , , ,

Moodle Metacourses, part IV: The support workflow: Transcoding audio learning materials

2011/08/31 1 comment

The MS-WMA-Voice codec features very acceptable audio quality for spoken language learning materials in a highly compressed format. It allowed me to reduce  our existing audio files collection size by about 50%.

Expression Encoder 3 crashed a few times during encoding this queue of 3.500 audio files. In addition, it took a long time to reload the .XEJ project files of such a size. It is, however, easy enough to inspect the XEJ in an XML editor:

expression-project-xml-notepad

And even easier to delete the finished media files form the queue using a text editor:expression-project-xml-textpad

I am wondering whether this queuing could be streamlined (recovery automated, and the need for human interaction be reduced) using the PowerShell Module for Automating Expression-Encoder, but so far the process is good enough.

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, e-infrastructure, learning-materials Tags: , , , ,

Sanako Study-1200 slow spanning 2 screens with different resolutions

2011/08/31 1 comment
  1. UPDATE2: 2013-09: apparently new video driver crashes with autoscan window, this time even on primary screen alone?
  2. UPDATE: 2011-01:Problem seems to have disappeared (windows update?)
  3. Symptom: This is on a Dell Optiplex 760 (B6CCLK1) which has no problems with Sanako’s screen sharing application, as long as you do not attempt to span the windows across two screens with different resolution which makes even the mouse jerky. Not sure, but do not remember having this problem across two screens with the same resolution. Actually, the Sanako subwindow (remote ctronl specifically) slows down the computer even if it is only on th secondary screen.
  4. Solution: Relatively easily fixed, if you can afford upgrading not only the screen, but also the LCD projector that hangs on one of the screens…
  5. Workaround: Do not span sub-windows of Sanako Study-1200 across screens. This problem can become so bad that the Sanako sub window becomes completely unresponsive and cannot be moved or closed (neither with the close button in the upper right nor with ALT-F4). Try CTRL-ALT-ESC then and kill the process. You could also try and upgrade the video card driver which may be the true culprit. However, on the Sanako sub windows seem to display the problem (screensharing with remote control, chat also). E.g. Internet Explorer windows do not have the same problem when spanned across screens.
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, Glitches&Errors Tags: , ,