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How teachers find their Sanako files – once they are in the right network share folder

  1. The beginning of the folder name with your recordings corresponds to the date/ time the exam was collected (some translation required – the date time appears in this special format yyyy-MM-dd  hh_mm) so that the folders can also be easily sorted by name, see below).
  2. image
  3. When viewing the folder, click on the column headers to sort by name (sorting by date also often works): image
  4. If you forgot when you held your exam: The exam appointment is not only in the LRC room calendar (which can get busy and takes some prior setup to be searchable), but in your own NINERMAIL calendar, so that you can check there also: clip_image003
  5. We recommend that the exams (unlike the system tests (“nametests”)  which can be collected using the computer name as filename) be collected using the student username as recording filename, you can also search the student folder for students with your username: clip_image004
  6. We also recommend that you add a memorable (to you) tag to the folder name when collecting (in this case “level2 speaking exam1”) to make it easier for you to retrieve your assessments. The best tags in this world of computers helping us find things seem to be long unique strings (think of twitter hashtags).

How teachers find their Sanako materials – even from home

  1. The best way (from your office)  I described here and support, for lack of any other possibilities, by getting you the desktop shortcuts and Sanako student recorder.
  2. Other ways are supported by whatever home connection to network shares ITS supports:
    1. The myfiles portal: https://myfiles.uncc.edu
      1. how the sanako looks like in DriveS DVOL1  COAS  LCS  LRC  UNCC myfiles portal
      2. You can use the folders listed in here,
        1. except you have to translate “S:” into (1) “DVOL1”.
        2. Rest  stays the same (2).
      3. Cons’:
        1. Slower network
        2. You cannot easily save back after comment on your students audio or text (but give it a shot).
    2. VPN
      1. which I test and explain here in detail,
      2. Pro’s: it is a better experience
        1. instead of it  requiring you to do yet another path translation, you can simply click here;
        2. you can (batch) open and save files (maintaining ownership) like on your office PC (no extra upload and download operations required, and no need to manually route files to students)
      3. Con’s:  Slower network.

General digital audio lab introduction for student users of the LRC

  1. The LRC has been upgraded from use of  solely Audacity to a digital audio lab and classroom management system geared towards language learning, and teaching. The Sanako Study 1200 is a professional software suite that includes a remote-controlled dual track audio recorder with many specialized features not found in OSS audio editors and simple free web-based recorders.  It successful use, even by so-called “digital natives”,  requires, for lack of exposure, training .
  2. Archived online versions of overview training (for your review; sorry: viewing is NOT equivalent to taking the training) were published here when the Sanako was first set up:
    1. Recorded LRC Director overview training screencast
    2. Student interface overview and summary
  3. Specific tasks:
    1. How student downloads, edits and submits files sent from the teacher with Sanako Study 1200 Homework –the ultimate training summary….
    2. How students can do voice insert recordings with Sanako Study 1200 student recorder – the ultimate training summary…
    3. More student task training videos are being added continuously as time permits, check back at this link: Sanako step-by-step training videos for students.
  4. Sorry, we have no self-study online tests to check learning outcomes in digital audio lab proficiency. However, we offer interactive live trainings for classes.

LRC offers generating audio files from your foreign language texts

2013/03/01 2 comments
  1. Would you like to expose your student to L2 listening materials beyond the audio learning materials that come with your textbook?
    1. Materials customized to the learning needs of your classes? From current affairs maybe?
    2. Would you prefer no to send them to  internet audio that may be difficult and time consuming to integrate?
    3. Do you lack the time to record speaking cues, oral exam questions or reading models yourself?
    4. Do you need audio files that you and your students can rewind/fast forward/replay, edit and record into with voice insert?
    5. And would you prefer using audio in your classes that comes with aligned text, whether that audio that has been transcribed or vice versa, to create glossaries,  captions,  multimedia assignments?
  2. The LRC now offers generating audio files from your foreign language texts in many languages.
    1. The service is based on the quality voices of Google Translate text-to-speech (better (simpler) than its actual translation portion, let alone its naïve use).
    2. Unlike Google translate, the service persists longer than 100 character texts to audio files (mp3) that (and the underlying digital text) we can work with further, in your syllabus, the LMS and the digital audio lab.
    3. Technical background and samples.
    4. Languages that are available in good quality: See links under this post;  other languages: please test with me..
  3. To request an audio file generation for your class, send the following information to the LRC
    1. regular reading/listening materials: plain digital text should do;
    2. SANAKO oral exam cues: please enter the text in this MS-Word table and add information in the additional columns for exam customization.

Automating language learning listening material creation with Google Translate text-to-speech: The technology

  1. A digital audio lab heavily depends on the availability of, but does not usually come with digital learning materials (and recent exceptions are exceptions for a reason)  Some digital audio materials that come with your textbook may be adaptable. “Rolling your own” has all kinds of advantages (allows for personalization, for both teachers to express themselves, and for students to learn), but can be a chore.
  2. Can the LRC find a workaround?  Here is one attempt: making Google translate (too often abused by students in its original interface) text-to-speech (unusable for learning material in its original interface since severely crippled) usable for digital audio learning material production, provided you have a source text in the target language. image
  3. GoogleTTS can serve as the gateway to better suiting Google Translate text-to-speech features to the needs of the LRC:
    1. imageGoogleTTS allows for arbitrary-length input text (it chunks it automatically).
    2. GoogleTTS produces intermediate local audio files which we can postprocess.
    3. Google Translate’s automatic language recognition remains a sore point: it is not reliable. Unlike Google Translate, GoogleTTS has no interface to set the language manually when the automatic recognition fails.
  4. Batch-download the files from Google Translate, using MS-PowerShell: <
    $global:folder = 'G:\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5'
    $filter = '*.mp3' # &lt;-- set this according to your requirements
    $global:destination = 'G:\conf\programs\GoogleTTS\mp3'
    $global:path
    $global:path1
    $currenttimeFunction MonitorAndMoveFile{
    $fsw = New-Object IO.FileSystemWatcher $folder, $filter -Property @{
    IncludeSubdirectories = $true # ja, brauch ich für googletts i&lt;-- set this according to your requirements
    NotifyFilter = [IO.NotifyFilters]'FileName, LastWrite'
    }
    $onCreated = Register-ObjectEvent $fsw Created -SourceIdentifier FileCreated -Action { # the even monitored is file created - to force recreation of files by googletts, you may have to clear watched folder of all mp3 &lt; 100kb first
    $global:path = $Event.SourceEventArgs.FullPath
    Write-Host $global:path -ForegroundColor Magenta # this works also
    $name = $Event.SourceEventArgs.Name
    $changeType = $Event.SourceEventArgs.ChangeType
    start-sleep -Seconds 2 # The OnCreated event is raised as soon as a file is created.
    if ($global:path -ne $global:path1) # it is a createdevent on a different file from last time - just in caseon oncreated not firing clear cut, but it seems to
    {
    $currenttime = Get-Date -Format yyyy-MM-dd-hhmmss
    Write-Host "attempt copy $global:path1 to $cuurrenttime" # try copying the past file
    # Copy-Item -Path $global:path1 -Destination "G:\conf\programs\GoogleTTS\mp3\$currenttime.mp3" -Force # that worked with the last generated file, wait: the last one is the one that remaisn behind, earlier ones get overwritten
    Copy-Item -LiteralPath $global:path1 -Destination "G:\conf\programs\GoogleTTS\mp3\$currenttime.mp3" -Force # that worked with the last generated file, wait: the last one is the one that remaisn behind, earlier ones get overwritten
    # use parameter -literalPath because files in the temp folder have usually [ and ] inside the name which acts as wildcards characters
    $global:path1 = $global:path
    }}
    while (1) {
    sleep -Milliseconds 100
    write-host $global:path # this works
    }}
    MonitorAndMoveFile
    #Unregister-Event -SourceIdentifier FileCreated
    
    
  5. Merge the downloaded files (wisely numbered sequentially):
  6. image
  7. Fix minor errors in your audio editor:
  8. image
  9. Done:
    1. Here I have a lot of questions for a speaking exam in ESL, and with a much better accent than my own.
    2. Nifty, plus output sounds even better for German than for English. Note, there is no attempt to parse sentences semantically. Some languages chunk better than others (I made some little improvements in this regard to the original program). Other common problems include numbers and in German I find myself, when listening, tending to look up once in a while and shake a high school students by the shoulders, asking him: “Do you actually understand what you are reading?!” Smile– which in my eyes is an indicator to the progress made in speech-synthesis.
    3. Other examples include French,
    4. Hindi,
    5. Italian,
    6. Spanish.
  10. So can the LRC relieve teachers from recording their cue files for the digital audio lab listening comprehension and exam? Within limitiations.

How a teacher can show a model student screen to other student computers in Sanako Study 1200–the ultimate training summary…

…using animated .gifs. Slower? Compact: 0.25sec,0.5sec, 0.75sec, 1sec, 1.5sec, 2sec, 3sec, 4sec, 5sec, 6sec, 7sec, 8sec, 9sec, 10sec. Or including unmarked frames: 0.25sec, 0.5sec, 0.75sec, 1sec, 1.5sec, 2sec, 3sec, 4sec, 5sec, 6sec, 7sec, 8sec, 9sec, 10sec. 1sec

How a teacher can divide a class into groups, each sharing audio and one screen, in Sanako Study 1200–the ultimate training summary…

  1. … using animated GIFS
    1. make groups (=sessions) like shown here;
    2. share audio/screen within  each group so that (ideal for enforcing oral communication during a shared computer task)
      1. everybody can hear and speak, like shown here (but use option “All in group” instead of pairs in discussion);
      2. everybody can see screen of “model student”  (as shown here), but only screen owner can type/mouse (and draw, using start/Zoomit/CTRL+F1).

Sanako Study 1200 V6.1 implements text-to-speech with language learner features

  1. Sanako continues its foray into learning materials – this time semi-automated (makes sense to me: what can be automated, will be automated) and into text-to-speech automation (makes sense to me: one of the more robust (since simpler) applications of AI to NLP) for pronunciation help (also makes sense to me: can help my language learners fight their fear of losing face).
  2. Text-to-speech looks like a great addition in Sanako Study 1200 V.61 for the language learner:
  3. image
    1. especially since it
      1. includes play speed options
      2. allows for download of speech rendition for review
      3. can blend with a human expert in the face-to-face classroom
    2. while saving human experts time to record audio learning materials.
    3. Caveats:
    4. Would like to know more about IVONA voices.
    5. Pricing? Available Languages?
  4. We are still on Sanako 5.2, but will be losing our Deskbot text-to-speech wizard with XP soon –  so coincidentally I have just been wondering whether we will be able to hack together a text-to-speech on Windows 7, maybe using Google translate voices, but without the Google translate features that are commonly  abused by language learners? Update: Look here for automating Google translate text-to-speech.