websites | Thomas' Work Space

ICS corruption in Moodle calendar events?

2012/11/28 plagwitz Leave a comment

I am seeing once again a large number of events loaded as internet calendar into MS-Outlook via an iCal link default to the same day:
This time the iCal sources is Moodle, but it also displays the iCal feed internally so:
I observed a similar issue when loading certain Drupal calendars into MS-Outlook, only that

it seems to have affected only certain sites on the same (?) Drupal instance (is this user input error?)
Events defaulted to the current day in MS-Outlook – the Moodle issue does not.
All events were effected – not so in this Moodle issue.

Categories: documentation, Glitches&Errors, lms Tags: calendaring, drupal, ical, moodle, ms-outlook

Help with MyLanguageLab recordings

2012/11/28 plagwitz Leave a comment

Taken almost straight from the BB_Voice_Troubleshooting_Guide.pdf:
When using the Voice Recorder, first click the (0) blue “Record” to load the recorder. You may have to accept a security warning.
Then click the (1) red record button
IMPORTANT: Click the (2) black STOP button to save your recording. (If you do not click the stop button, your recording will NOT be saved and your instructor will not be able to hear your voice). When you stopped, the timer in the upper right will change from showing “time remaining” to “time recorded”.
Click the (now not grayed out, but ) green PLAY button to confirm your voice was recorded. If you do not hear anything, check your microphone and the volume controls on your computer.
If you wish, to re-record your voice,
1. click the red record button again.
2. Click YES when asked if you want to Override Current Recording.
3. Re-record and again click STOP. and play to Playback your recording.
When finished, Click Submit for Grading to submit the recording to your instructor for review.

Categories: audience-is-students, e-languages, multimedia-recording, textbooks, websites Tags: mylanguagelab

How to switch the input language in Respondus Lockdown browser, e.g. to Arabic

2012/10/23 plagwitz Leave a comment

Short answer:

Right-click the Language bar on the taskbar and choose “Restore the Language bar”, like so:
This makes the language bar a floating toolbar on top of the screen, like here: . This floating toolbar you can still access when in Lockdown browser.
The language bar can be temperamental, you may need to bring it up again, try switching back and forth between input fields.

Long Answer:

Respondus Lockdown browser blocks many functionalities, including the shortcut combination to change input languages (usually LEFT ALT + SHIFT) and access to the Language bar on the task bar.
This is not an issue when your quiz is in a western language and you have US- international keyboard layout configured as your default (which lets you type most Western diacritics without need for keys blocked by Respondus Lockdown browser )
It is an issue with e.g. Arabic. You cannot even temporarily set Arabic to your default input language before starting lockdown browser, since then you cannot log in (with MS Maren IME, you can override the Arabic default to enter your username in western characters, but not the password. Respondus Lockdown Browser is built on Internet Explorer, but it does not share the cookies, so being logged into your LMS in Internet Explorer does not carry over to your Lockdown Browser session).
Workaround: See above.

Categories: Arabic, audience-is-students, Farsi, Greek (ancient), Hebrew, Hindi, Korean, Listening-Stations, lms, Mandarin, service-is-testing-troubleshooting-debugging, Spanish, Writing Tags: Respondus-lockdown -browser

Mylanguagelab.com “Authentication failed” glitch in audio recorder

2012/10/18 plagwitz Leave a comment

Common error in IE8 when students review their test before submitting. No worries, the student recording is not lost. Still, what is the solution?

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, Glitches&Errors, service-is-evaluating-learning-tools, Student-Computers, textbooks, websites Tags: mylanguagelab

How teachers can use MS-Word Mail merge with filtering and if-then-else to quickly provide personalized feedback based to students depending on grade

2012/10/18 plagwitz Leave a comment

Intelligence is adaptation to feedback. Providing personalized feedback to students depending on their performance could make student development much more successful.
Intelligence is expensive. How can the teacher provide personalized feedback time-efficiently? Likely by blending artificial intelligence with her own.
Sounds like Sci-fi? A great practical example, using existing familiar IT infrastructure, you can find here: MS-Word’s (2010; 2007 works the same) mail merge feature, on the basis of a downloaded Moodle gradebook with student results, can customize semi-automatically your reusable feedback email message template to individual recipient’s performance and needs:
Step-by-step instructions: http://teaching.uncc.edu/moodle/grade-book/how-to/using-mail-merge-grade-book.
Screencast of the webinar instruction: http://mt202.sabameeting.com/SiteRoots/main/User/GuestAttend.jhtml?pb=true&s_guid=0000018151460000013a0a22cfb39443&domain=/Customers/uncc&domain=/

Categories: audience-is-teachers, e-learning, grading, lms, office-software, Screencasts, step-by-step-guides Tags: MS-Word

Ipatrainer.com community provides free phonetic transcription tables with sounds and exercises

2012/10/11 plagwitz Leave a comment

This is looking good, but …
1. There seem to be some coding issues, I am getting server errors 500 after registering.
2. The site is advertisement-based.
3. There is no content beyond the IPA sound which would put these bare basics in phonetics into language learning context and practice.
Site Contains:
1. tables for teaching your language – complete with phonetic symbols and sound samples
2. and exercises for your students (e.g. Memory games, Identifying characters , places, and sounds.
You can
1. Create your own, after free registration,
2. or assign one of the ones from many other teachers.
  1. Most popular ones are listed here: http://www.ipatrainer.com/user/site/?language=, and if the use numbers are accurate, there must be really some serious IPA learning going on here…
  2. I see no way to browse other tables without having the username of the teacher who created and assigned it.
There is also a phonetic writer.
And a user forum, in its infancy.

Categories: Arabic, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, learning-materials, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, service-is-evaluating-learning-tools, Spanish, Speaking, Swahili, websites, Yoruba Tags: ipa, phonetics

Delete the Flash Global Settings if the iMacs webcam displays black frame only

2012/10/11 plagwitz Leave a comment

Problem: Safari and (not recommended after last testing round) Firefox both hung on iMAC6 when a student tried to do a Moodle Kaltura Webcam assignment and got to the built-in ISight camera display page.
Cause: maybe a Flash security problem accessing the web cam? maybe security dialogue was not answered by the student correctly earlier, and the “preference”stored in her account?

Solution (presumably): System started working again after I deleted the Flash Global settings, by right-clicking on the webcam video preview window like so:

Ceterum censeo that we need a computer management infrastructure if we want to use MACs for language learning technology. Faronics-Deepfreeze would have prevented this problem, provided we have a software imaging system (CASPER coming up apparently) that can let us start with a usable image, and the staff time to learn and configure 2 usable OS images and dual usable computer management infrastructures. TCO now > TCO dual OS infrastructure > TCO web cams for 45 PCs.