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Archive for the ‘Learning-Tool-is-any’ Category

Face-to-face and beyond: Smart-board with digitized textbooks and classroom protocols, using MS_Remote Desktop, MS_Zoomit, wireless keyboard, network shares and the Blackboard: Content System

2010/04/08 Leave a comment
  1. This post strings together some already supported or freely available technologies for an effortless way to integrate technology into teaching and learning.
  2.  I had lab assistants scan my textbook. I stored the scans on the teacher-only network share.
  3. In the classroom, I connect to my office computer with mstsc.
    1. you may have to change screen resolution in mstsc. You can save your connection settings on the teacher network share.
  4. To save precious class contact time, on my office computer, I have already opened and prepared the class outline and relevant textbook scan pages with the default windows viewer.
  5. Using zoomit, I can mark on the textbook scan pages for my students, and save the resulting pages, later easily (drag and drop all pages at once) store them in the content system or my students to review my notes.
    1. you may want to adjust the font size in zoomit options.
  6. this technique may also help with fading out document cameras which may, among other things, help with finding enough space to put.

 

Categories: e-learning, Face-to-Face, lms Tags: , , , , ,

How a teacher grades a Blackboard audio recording assignment

2010/04/08 Leave a comment
  1. Switch to interactive view, if your vertical scrollbar does not show up, and thus the assignment column is hidden (or reduce the font size in Firefox, e.g. by holding CTRL and rolling the mouse scroll wheel): clip_image002
  2. Once you see the assignment column, you can either download all submissions as a zip file, open it with the built-in zip tools in Windows (XP or newer). This is especially practical if you want to then select all recordings and drag and drop them into an audacity window, for doing easy to comparative grading of student submissions, as described earlier.
  3. To grade,
    1. you still need to click next to the green exclamation marks which indicate where there is an assignment to be graded, clip_image002[5]
    2. on the arrow keys which unfold a menu.clip_image002[7]
  4. This gets you to the grade details: clip_image002
  5. You can also listen to the student recording submission by clicking on the file linked behind “users; file”. clip_image002[5]
  6. Fill out your grade comments and grade.
  7. Instead of doing (only) written comments, you could also oral feedback grade the student recording, and re-upload this new recording.
  8. Finish by clicking button:”submit”.
  9. Next in series: How the student reviews a grade Blackboard audio recording assignments: TBA
  10. First in Series: A better way to do student homework audio recordings in the Sanako LAB 300, using Blackboard:Assignment.
Categories: learning-materials, Listening, lms, service-is-learning-materials-creation, Speaking Tags:

How a student submits a Blackboard model imitation audio recording assignments

2010/04/08 Leave a comment
  1. Access the assignment in the location of your Blackboard course that your instructor pointed you to.
  2. Download the model audio recording attached to the assignment to your desktop (if any).
  3. Right-click on the downloaded file, choose open with (something else but the Sanako Duo which you will use to record).
  4. Play and listen to the model.
  5. Imitate the model, recording yourself using the previous instruction, using pause/play as needed.
  6. Upload the recording into the Blackboard assignment by clicking “browse to local file” [i.e. where you saved your recording].
  7. Click “submit”. If you get an error “Not a valid file’, try using another web browser to open the assignment and submit the file.
  8. Next steps: see How the teacher grades a Blackboard audio recording assignments
  9. First in series: A better way to do student homework audio recordings in the Sanako LAB 300, using Blackboard:Assignment
Categories: assignments, learning-materials, Listening, lms, Speaking Tags: ,

Language Lab Web Portal, University of Michigan – Dearborn

2010/04/07 Leave a comment

For lack of even an LMS – which in post-secondary language lab environments in the US in the “noughties” commonly has had to double as CMS and Groupware -, the lab web portal in the post title had to fulfill many functions.

While the technically most advanced features probably was full text search against both database and file system (uploaded documents) – which I could relatively easily implement thanks to MS-SQL-Server and a limited number of database tables –, I liked best the collaborative building of a bank of language learning exercises using authentic materials, i.e. interactive websites from the target culture.

A few sample illustrations of the use in both language lab and affiliated computerized classrooms you can see here:

The list below links to a series screencasts of the Language Lab Web Portal that I made for training and demonstration purposes. They show the language lab web portal software in action:

basics_intro_roles
basics_usagestatistics
Class_presentation_Fruehstuecksbueffet
content_headlines
content_search
How_to_add_a_links_assignment_in_90secs
How_To_Add_Pages_And_Modules_fast
How_to_get_Help_LinksExample
How_to_operate_the_wireless_keyboard
How_to_provide_Help_PrinterExample_short
How_to_record_streaming_media
inventorydb
ocr_to_word_fast
perl_links_moveunverified
portal_search
portal_search portal_search program search staff_tab_short userinput
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, e-languages, Institution-is-University-of-Michigan-Dearborn, lab-portal, Screencasts Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Data cleansing and ETL with Perl to remove broken links

2010/04/01 Leave a comment

Click to watch:

Categories: e-infrastructure, Screencasts, service-is-programming, websites Tags: , , ,

Doing simple web analytics with an ASP.net DataGrid control over SQL-Server

2010/04/01 Leave a comment

Categories: e-infrastructure, service-is-programming, websites Tags: , , , , , , ,

MS-SharePoint and the LLC

2010/03/26 Leave a comment

The LLC has a SharePoint team-site (Yay! ). About the first thing asked for in September when I found out searching the company website that Inside Loyola – the locally branded version of DataTEL’s ActiveCampus  – is built on MS-SharePoint.

This means MS-SharePoint’s features are available to the LLC. This has benefits which come with groupware applications (aka “What’s Wrong with Email?”) that sit on top of an account management system likes AD.

On the basis of the MS-SharePoint/MS-Exchange/MS-Active directory stack, you can build, with much less effort, a much better calendaring/scheduling solution than CGI’s from the 90s provide.

Calendaring/Scheduling is a productivity task common to most businesses. Learning resource catalogues are much more vertical market specific. But if you cannot even manage the character input issues in foreign language video catalogue in your pre-.Net ASP solution, you might still find a generic solution based on SharePoint lists better.

And once you outsourced common productivity software development to MS, you can get implementing e-learning beyond watching TV.

Categories: e-infrastructure, erepository, Institution-is-Loyola-University-Maryland Tags: , , , , ,

LLC Catalogue: Video-Reserves.xlsm, Reserve desk, Schedule, using Blackboard Content System WebDAV

2010/03/24 Leave a comment

For a LLC video schedule, we came up with the following repurposing of existing infrastructure:

  1. MS-Excel: still the “Swiss army knife” of choice for the middle manager. Allows for: semi-automatic creation of reserve date sequences (insert series), given a start and end date; data validation during data entry, and, based on that, sorting and filtering and, based on that, finding.
  2. Blackboard Content management system (WebDAV) to manage reading and writing (editing) permissions.
  4. Staff can use MS-Excel to request videos – preferably at start of term – to be put on reserve within a start and end date, during which they will be periodically shown, by opening the spreadsheet from MS-Excel and filling in the green cells in the first empty row at the bottom.
  5. Lab Staff can use MS-Excel to periodically transfer video reserve requests into video showings.
  6. Lab Assistants can use MS-Excel to daily maintain video reserve desk and video showings.
  7. Students can use a web browser to preview video showing times during the remainder of the term. 
  8. To open the video schedule for read-only, Loyola students and staff can  simply click this link in their browser: https://blackboard.loyola.edu/bbcswebdav/users/trplagwitz/llc-pfiles/video/video-reserves.xslm. Even read-only access includes the capability to search, sort and filter the schedule data, but you cannot save back.
  9. To open the video schedule for editing, LLC and Modern Languages staff  can start MS-Excel, click menu: File / Open, and copy/paste this link:  https://blackboard.loyola.edu/bbcswebdav/users/trplagwitz/llc-pfiles/video/video-reserves.xslm, then click open.
  10. All users will have to authenticate with their institutional account info:

 

 

Categories: e-infrastructure, erepository, Institution-is-Loyola-University-Maryland, lms, Media, service-is-library Tags: , , , , , ,