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A template for Digital audio lab model-imitation/question-response oral exams

2012/04/11 Leave a comment
Categories: digital-audio-lab, Documents, service-is-learning-materials-creation Tags: , , , ,

A better way to do student homework audio recordings in the Sanako LAB 300, using Blackboard:Assignment

2010/03/08 Leave a comment
  1. More robust than the more common way using the default network shares of a Sanako Lab 300 – to my knowledge, up to this day Sanako Labs lack any integration with the LMS/VLE regarding the upload of student output – is using the assignment tool of the VLE which provides integration with the Student Information System and an entire infrastructure for assessment purposes (gradebook and beyond).
  2. I know that some teachers use Blackboard email with attachments for assignments, others the blackboard drop-box. Some, including me, use the assignment tool which, since it appears to be far superior to the older tools, this post would like to advertise.  
    1. The assignment tool automatically creates a grade center column. 
    2. You can batch download student file submission (papers or recordings) and blackboard assignment tool puts the assignment name and the username in the file name for easier management,
    3. and you can upload a graded version to return assignments to the student and include comments. 
    4. You can also create comments for the instructors only to view. 
    5. Faculty can also use track changes and insert more fine-grained comments and corrections within MS-Word.
  3. Here are the parts of this series:
    1. How the teacher creates a Blackboard model imitation audio recording assignments
    2. How the student submits a Blackboard model imitation audio recording assignments
    3. How the teacher grades a Blackboard audio recording assignments
    4. How the student reviews a grade Blackboard audio recording assignments: TBA.
Categories: assignments, digital-audio-lab, e-learning, lms, multimedia-recording Tags: , ,

Sanako Lab300 Oral-exam-question-response-recording-cycle

2010/01/07 Leave a comment

A 6-minute screen-cast explaining the sanako-lab300-oral-exam-question-response-recording-cycle.wmv

Please consult the transcript for a table of contents:

 

0,00

Here we are administering an oral exam. we are going to play pre-recorded teacher-questions to multiple students, we are going to record their responses and, at the end, we are going to collect their recordings in a batch:

0,12

for this, we have all seats where a student is present added to group a, and have set the program source for group a to media file

0,22

we monitor the situation on the student computers by accessing menu: other / thumbnail of group, 

the screen sharing is slow here, has been improved somewhat by installing more memory, the crowded screen situation has also been improved by installing a secondary monitor, use it for viewing the thumbnail window

0,59

in the group a pane, we use the button: duo launch, and ok the dialogue, to open th estudent recorder on the student computers

1,07

in the section:media source, button: file open, we access our pre-recorded question file

1,13

in the meantime, the duo has launched on the student computers – as you can see in the classroom layout from the squares on the student seats, as well as on the mosaic thumbnail screens

1,35

we double-click on a single thumbnail to demo to the students on the screen projector how to adjust the volume

1,43

we click button:transfer to play the volume test file to the students

we have the students record their name at the end of the sound test, to check all recorders, and to be able to identify the speaker in the actual exam file (which will be saved with only the student number in lab 300)

we stop the button:transfer and go to menu:test:response recording

in the pane:”response recording”, in section:”collect”, we click button:”start”

we save the recording in a subdirectory with a meaningful name of our choice

we ok the dialogue that informs us of the response recording

in the window:mosaic, the encoding activity window briefly flashes on the student screens

we browse to the student collect folder, where all subdirectories are saved

we check the folder visibly for the right number (use select all), size or duration of audio files –

it would be even safer, even though more time consuming, to open all the test recordings with audacity, especially on a slow computer, and check the volume graph – open audacity and drag and drop all files onto it

4,07

the soundtest is a complete recording cycle. Simply repeat for the actual exam, but

first  close the pane:response recording, to go back to your pane:group,

in section:program transfer, click button:group control, click icon:file/new, to flush the prior test out of the student recorders,

in the dialogue:”save changes”, click no

and this time load the actual exam audio file

once the sound check is done, we could use button:lock for the students to prevent them from interfering with the computers during the exam

Categories: digital-audio-lab, e-languages, Institution-is-Loyola-University-Maryland, multimedia-recording, Screencasts Tags: , ,

Sanako Lab 300: Pairing and some basics

2009/11/03 Leave a comment

In the spirit of ‘Better improvised instruction and information distribution than failing classes in the lab”, I recorded a 1-on-1 instruction on how to pair students, including some other basic Lab300 features into a 5-minute screencast with voice over  (open with Windows Media Player): sanako-lab300_pairing-and-basics.wmv

For an overview, see the following table of contents (when reviewing the video before starting your class in the Lab, search your webmail for the link to this instruction.)

  1. Not shown: teach students once and for all: always log in first;
  2. Grouping setup pane (all into L, then into A, excluding unused seats);
  3. Pair discussion setup pane (button: select for manual pair select mode);
  4. Not shown: teacher should use button: duo launch to facilitate student control of audio;
  5. Within group A pane , teacher uses button:transfer, changes program source to audio cassette:
    Pair discussion setup pane : “re-pair”, using button:cancel all, button:random to have Lab 300 software choose pairs;
  6. Within group A pane , teacher uses button:headphone for talking to group (not shown: remember to undo when finished!)
  7. From classroom layout: teachers clicks student icon to bring up student pane;
  8. From student pane, teacher views student screen, listens to student (or pair), uses student button:intercom for talking to student (or pair);
  9. From top menu: Other / thumbnail view of group: teacher brings up Mosaic window, to monitor (“police”) entire group screens; translates what you see to individual student, and uses button:lock (keyboard, screen or both) to prevent students from not staying on task [Demo this in first lab class to your students, using the screen projector , and hopefully they will hopefully stay on task];
  10. From menu: Other/ thumbnail view of group, teacher brings up Mosaic window and double clicks student screen to control individual student computer (e.g. to close a web browser – another way to police, less effective, but possible; better used for collaboration) . [Better policing options can be set up in the using the Lab300 web browser).
Categories: digital-audio-lab, e-languages, Institution-is-Loyola-University-Maryland, Screencasts, step-by-step-guides Tags: ,

An outline of the MS-Word Cloze Quiz, MS-PowerPoint Multiple Choice Quiz and Internet Lookup tools for

2009/07/29 Leave a comment
  1. To facilitate lesson delivery and student interaction in our language lab and computerized classrooms, I am programming two MS-Office templates with interactive lookup and quiz functions and create new/convert traditional language teaching materials in French, German and Spanish with them.
  2. These templates support the learner by strengthening learner autonomy and providing immediate corrective feedback and – in conjunction with the grouping facilities of the centre’s infrastructure – allow for custom-tailored instruction based on the immediately available outcome of formative assessments.
  3. MS-Word-Template
  4. The student can be given additional hints when tabbing into a form entry field.
  5. The student can easily look up words and terms in internet-based reference works and collections.
    1. Double clicking on a word opens a browser window with the corresponding entry in a dictionary of the corresponding foreign language.
    2. Selecting a word or phrase and clicking on a menu item in the lookup menu a browser window with the corresponding entry of various reference works and databases (Figure 3: Look up Internet Reference Works, Figure 4: Look up Internet Illustrations).
  6. The student will receive instant feedback when tabbing out of an entry field.
  7. During quiz-taking, the screen will be formatted (font face, size, spacing, colors) so that the teacher keeps easily informed, whether through a computer lab management system / screen monitoring tool or by a more “pedestrian” approach for student monitoring.
  8. After collection and before correction by the teacher and reviewing by the student, the screen will be re-formatted to facilitate reading outside of the classroom setting.
  9. The template can be used for a wide variety of typical foreign language teaching exercises:
    1. Listening comprehension exercises (Figure 3: Quiz Template with Chanson Lyrics)
    2. Grammar drills
    3. Model imitation drills
    4. Information-gap dialogues (Figure 7: Information Gap Dialogues (Language Lab Example).
  10. Instructors have requested fuzzy matching for fill-in-the-blank exercises, which I am planning to implement by integrating an existing COM add-in that can make available the Levenshtein Distance Metric to MS-Word.
  11. Upgrade of Templates from Sanako Lab300 to better integrate with the new Sanako Study1200 software features.
  12. Teaching Content Creation:
    1. Making subtitles for foreign language movie digitally available;
    2. Programming regular expressions ins VS.Net that match function words (example: demonstrative pronouns in Spanish) to run over these templates in order to batch create fill-in-the-blank exercises;
    3. Importing them into the templates and creating grammar and listening comprehension exercises
  13. Support: Implementing an Error Logging Application
  14. MS-PowerPoint-Template
  15. The teacher can easily lookup words and terms in internet-based reference works and collections
    1. Currently implementing additional lookup options (NLP and Corpus Linguistics (ACORN, BNC, Sketchup), Dictionaries (Visurwords, Wiktionary, Google Define).
    2. A number of templated custom-animated exercises can be used for
      1. presenting students with guiding questions before watching/listening to a target language segment
      2. Revealing correct answers after the segment.
  16. A number of templated interactive exercises can be used for revealing correct answers (word lists) depending on students’ responses.
  17. The templates support typical activities in the digital language lab (interactive presentations with multimedia, listening comprehensions, speaking and dialoguing activities for language learning, view usage examples in my Templates Eurocall Presentation video of September 2007). Teachers can use them as exercise-generating engines: they allow copy/paste of their own exercises into these templates. These templates have the advantage of being able to hook into the rich infrastructure that MS-Office provides for language teaching; they work with all Western Languages (but have been thoroughly tested only with ESL, French, German, Italian and Spanish so far). These templates that are better geared than VLE and other CALL resources for daily use in a computerized classroom environment: easy to author, take and monitor and either multimedia-heavy or focused on human interaction. These templates support the instructor by relieving of routine tasks in favor of well-informed, well-focused non-routine intervention, and extend the centre’s screen-sharing and VOIP infrastructure to provide the instructor with an unprecedented control of the learning of an entire class.
  18. APP delivery format:
    1. MS-PowerPoint: 1 template-file (.pot) and 1 addin (.ppa)
    2. MS-Word: 1 template (.dot – incorporates Lookup application) and 1 COM application (fuzzy matching)
  19. Apart from the templates themselves, there is
    1. Explanation: documentation of the tool
      1. see Figure 4: Template Documentation,
      2. Figure 8: PowerPoint Exercise Templates,
    2. sample materials which illustrate the practical exploitation of a tool the development of a skill or the response to an issue
      1. see Figure 3: Quiz Template with Chanson Lyrics
      2. Figure 9: PowerPoint-Exercises for German History Documentary,
    3. Sample Exercise material: hands-on activities for materials development, skills training or discussion
      1. Figure 9: PowerPoint-Exercises for German History Documentary)
  20. Since January 2008, the templates have been adapted for use in the Aston university Study1200 lab and a series of 3 teacher training workshops has been delivered in May/June of 2008. During that time, the implementation of the distance metrics within the templates has been started also which is currently still in the debugging state (see following slide below.)

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Figure 1: Look up Internet Reference Works

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Figure 2: Look up Internet Illustrations

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Figure 3: Quiz Template with Chanson Lyrics

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Figure 4: Template Documentation

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Figure 5: Quiz Result Summary

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Figure 6: Spanish Movie Subtitling Exercise Creation

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Figure 7: Information Gap Dialogues (Language Lab Example)

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Figure 8: PowerPoint Exercise Templates

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Categories: all-languages, assessments, classroom-activities, classroom-teacher-computer, digital-audio-lab, e-languages, e-learning, Face-to-Face, learning-materials, Listening, Projectors, projects, proposals, Reading, reports, service-is-programming, Student-response-systems-AKA-clickers, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

Pedagogical rationale of timestretching audio for differentiating instruction

2008/09/06 Leave a comment
  1. Context: Higher Education in the UK has made considerable investments in digital lab infrastructure to improve second language instruction in times of deteriorating language take-up in the secondary sector, including widening participation. Digital language labs, apart from generic digital media, suffer from a lack of custom-made teaching materials that take advantage of the pedagogic features of the lab: grouping for personalization of teaching and learning. Pedagogical integration and development is needed to achieve the original intentions. A project to timestretch audio language learning materials for the digital audio lab promises integration software, pedagogical materials and, above all, a model of effective digital language lab use in teaching.
  2. Problem: In times of uneven language provision at the secondary school level and of shrinking language program sizes in HE, increasingly language teachers find themselves confronted with uneven language proficiency in their courses. Digital lab technology can help them to overcome the  “one size fits all” approach and personalize the students learning experience, for a greater inclusiveness in language programs and an increased proficiency boost for both the below and above average proficiency student groups.
  3. During my work with the language programmes at an English university, I could witness – and had to record – that the least proficient students, seeing themselves confronted with what was nowhere near “comprehensible input” (Krashen) for them, not only let the communication break down, but appeared so distressed that, despite being fully aware that their language output was being recorded as an assessment for the teacher to evaluate, started to curse and swear (in their native tongue) – while at the same time the upper portion of the class breezed through the exercise without any apparent difficulty.
  4. Proposed Solution:
    1. Technology to the rescue: The slowing down of digital audio – without pitch alteration –has been, while not a perfectly accurate representation of natural slow speech output, a popular benefit of digital technology in the language learning field for several years now (cf. e.g. Calico 2004), and I myself have experimented with it in the digital audio lab (Model imitation and Question – response exercises) and in publications (cf. Plagwitz, Karaoke in the Digital Audio Lab (2006)).
    2. What seems lacking are
      1. both an application that automates (by monitoring one of the network share directories that are part of the digital lab system) the slowing down (and speeding up) of audio for instructors (e.g. in 5% increments from 70% to 120% of original input) that are too time-pressed for producing materials, or even seeking out recordable on-air sources, and
      2. a model implementation in the digital audio lab (using dynamic grouping of students through the digital lab software) that creates exercises that would create exercises that can benefit from this approach (and can be shared), that applies them in a number of suitable (interpreting, ab initio language learning) modules and that assesses the proficiency improvement with this approach (using the outcome exam and a control group).
  5. Benefits: Greater fluency of both the least and most proficient students is to be expect after they were exposed to – as deemed fit by their instructors – slowed down/sped up exercises – ca. 20 exercises in the ab initio language learning module, practicing a small set of suitable new structures and vocabulary compared, with 2 control groups, and five interpreting rounds of 20-30 minutes. We will operationalize this by reusing regular assignment grading and use a control group, also of module-size, which must also use the digital audio lab, but with “one size fits all” audio.
Categories: all-languages, audience-is-teachers, classroom-activities, digital-audio-lab, e-languages, Institution-is-Aston-University, Interpreting, Listening, projects, proposals, service-is-applying-learning-tools, service-is-configuring-learning-tools, service-is-programming Tags: , ,

Do more with LLAS. Aston e-Learning Centre Year 1.

2008/03/31 Leave a comment

Presentation given at the CETL Symposium – Digital Language Labs: exploring good practice, March 15, 2007. SOAS, London, UK.

Categories: conferences, digital-audio-lab, Institution-is-Aston-University, learning-usage-samples, marketing, Screencasts Tags: