Archive
Archive for the ‘4-skills’ Category
Announcing new MS-Word templates for writing assignments during face-to-face-classes in the LRC
2012/11/08
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- Benefits
- MS-Word is technology that has become “transparent”for most users:
- Have teachers focus on assignment pedagogy, not authoring technology.
- Have students focus on the target language, not authoring technology.
- Document is protected (for restricting formatting to predefined Word-styles):
- Have students focus on form or content, but not on distracting formatting issues.
- Styles are designed to facilitate teacher monitoring students’ work using Sanako screensharing, like so:
- Take advantage of MS-Office Proofing tools (templates are preset for your target language).
- Take advantage of easy assignment file management with Sanako homework activity.
- Take advantage of internet lookup process, especially pedagogical if you combine with Sanako controlled-web-browsing activity
- MS-Word is technology that has become “transparent”for most users:
- Requirements:
- Teacher
- The easiest is to save the writing template for your language in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates\1033 (or if your run 32-bit MS-Word on a 64-bit Windows, C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Templates\1033)
- Then base your writing assignment document on the template (e.g. by double-clicking the template in the folder you saved it to).
- Then save your writing assignment to your class material folder on the Sanako network share (from the office or in the LRC).
- In class, launch the Sanako homework activity.
- Student: none other than downloading and submitting the Sanako homework.
- Teacher
Categories: announcements, audience-is-teachers, classroom-management-system, e-languages, office-software, Presenter-Computer, service-is-configuring-learning-tools, service-is-learning-materials-creation, service-is-programming, Student-Computers, Writing
homework-activity, MS-Word, sanako-study-1200, screensharing, templates, trpStudentWriting, web-browsing-activity
How to mix SANAKO- recorded individual students’ audio tracks together
2012/11/05
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- If the students’ audio tracks are not already time-aligned, first use audacity: "time shift tool" to align individual tracks
(with this tool selected, you can move individual tracks back and forth, to the left or right). - If/ When they are time-aligned, use audacity/ menu: tracks/"stereo track to mono".
Here are some direct links to live international TV
2012/11/01
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Arabic |
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Chinese |
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Dutch |
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Finnish |
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French |
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French |
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German |
(new & untested) ARD live stream, or (likely more useful)ARD Mediathek |
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Italian |
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Italian |
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Japanese |
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Japanese |
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Korean |
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Norwegian |
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Portuguese |
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Russian |
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Spanish (Spain) |
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Spanish (Spain) |
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Spanish (Latin America) |
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Swedish |
You can probably tell from the language selection where this list is from 
: Many thanks, University of Minnesota Language Center, I only had to remove your scheduling information which we have no use for…
Categories: audience-is-students, Listening, Media
FAQs, tv
How to type accented characters with US International keyboard – the ultimate training summary….
2012/11/01
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.Use SharePointDesigner here to quickly and cleanly edit legacy static web pages
2012/10/23
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- Confronted with the need to have faculty classify my variable speed animated GIF collection of Mandarin characters linked from static HTML pages, I find:
- SharePointDesigner is a FrontPage derivative, but still beats dealing with the special markup MS-Office tends to smuggle into your legacy web pages.
- And you can download it for free from MS here, install and open a file by right-clicking it and “Open with”, like so:
. - User then can e.g. select a pinyin word, right-click it, access the font-dialogue, like so:
, and, to align this alphabetic pinyin list to the progression in the syllabus if the Chinese language program, assign a heat-scale like so: 
. E.g this would denote an easy character for Chinese 101: 
. - Note 1: Do not use SharePointDesigner 2010,, this doe not allow easy editing of single web pages anymore:
. - Note 2: The CSS style markup that SharePointDesigner puts in smartly for the font color change is ignored by Internet Explorer 8 (Huh?!), so we will have to TBA:ask students to use Firefox instead.
- Note3: Why not just use MS-Word as HTML-Editor. Even if you save as and choose “Web-page filtered, like so:
, to avoid MS-Office specific markup, MS-word puts spurious markup in that makes it not only slow down the road to open the file, but also difficult to post-process them with regular expression (I have a few hundred copies to make for different animation speeds). Compare the file sizes here: 
How to switch the input language in Respondus Lockdown browser, e.g. to Arabic
2012/10/23
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- 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.
How student downloads, edits and submits files sent from the teacher with Sanako Study 1200 Homework –the ultimate training summary….
2012/10/16
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…using animated GIFs. (Here are the parts 1+2 that your teacher has to do). Slower? Click , 0.50sec, 0.75sec, 1sec, 2sec, 3sec, 4sec, 5sec, 6sec, 7sec, 8sec, 9sec, 10sec.
UPDATE: Now also split into
- PART 1: download from teacher (Here are the parts 1+2 that your teacher has to do). Slower? Click , 0.50sec, 0.75sec, 1sec, 2sec, 3sec, 4sec, 5sec, 6sec, 7sec, 8sec, 9sec, 10sec.
- PART 2: submission to teacher(Here are the parts 1+2 that your teacher has to do). Slower? Click , 0.50sec, 0.75sec, 1sec, 2sec, 3sec, 4sec, 5sec, 6sec, 7sec, 8sec, 9sec, 10sec.
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