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Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

How to display Furigana phonetic guide for Japanese Kanji in MS-Word 2010

2012/02/21 1 comment
  1. Furigana uses Kana (usually Hiragana) to phonetically transcribe Kanji, above (for horizontally written Kanji) or to the right (if in vertical writing mode), for special characters or audiences (children and second language learners).
  2. In MS-Office, if you have a Japanese Input Method Editor selected in MS-Windows, select some Kanji and in the ribbon, under tab: home, section: font; click on the Phonetic guide, to bring up a dialogue that attempts to auto detect the furigana.
  3. You can make adjustments there, click “OK “to insert. Like so:
  4. japanese-furigana
Categories: Advanced, audience-is-students, Beginner, e-languages, Intermediate, Japanese, Listening-Stations, Near-Native, office-software, Presenter-Computer, small-group-work-spaces, Student-Computers, Vocabulary, Writing Tags:

How to use Google translate for writing Cyrillic letters with a western keyboard, pronunciation help, and text-to-speech

2012/02/16 Leave a comment

Go to  Google translate and do like so. Useful for learning, as well as typing when teaching.

Categories: Absolute-Beginner, Advanced, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, Beginner, Dictionaries, e-languages, Intermediate, Listening, Reading, Russian, service-is-evaluating-learning-tools, Speaking, Writing Tags: , ,

How to use a drawing tablet and Windows XP writing pad IME to write Japanese and Mandarin characters with autosuggest

2012/02/04 2 comments
  1. Our small group work spaces each now have a Wacom Bamboo drawing tablet installed.
  2. You can use these tablets in conjunction with the Windows XP writing pad IME to input Mandarin/Kanji character strokes and receive autosuggest options you can pick you character from which make not only writing faster, but also reward you for remembering your characters, expose you to more and help you identify the correct one from a list of options.
  3. Here is what the Windows XP writing pad IME and Wacom tablet looks like in action: (behind the pen: our Japanese tutor).
  4. Here is how to access Windows XP Japanese IME keyboard and handwriting:
    1. Open the application you want to write in, e.g. MS Word (the language input option is specific to the current window and defaults to”English-US international”  in the LRC if you open a new window).
    2. In the taskbar, in the language toolbar section, select Japanese or Chinese or Korean.
    3. If only the language identifier is showing in the language toolbar, right-click on it and choose “Show additional icons”
    4. Select as input method for the chosen language from icon “Options” or “Tools”” , the “IME pad” / “Handwriting”
    5. Prerequisites
        1. you need to have the handwriting IME installed for Japanese or  Chinese or Korean in Control Panel / Regional and Language Options / Text Input, and East Asian language support).
        2. For simplified Chinese, the IME Pad may not be checked to be displayed by default. Access the Tools icon menu to check it.
        3. For both simplified and traditional Chinese, if checked, the IME Pad becomes a separate top-level ion in the language bar.
        4. Some screenshots may help:

      korean-ime-pad-enable  chinese-simplified-ime-pad-enablechinese-simplified-ime-pad chinese-traditional-ime-pad

Categories: Advanced, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, Intermediate, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Near-Native, Videos, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

How a teacher creates a Moodle file upload assignment for writing

2012/01/30 1 comment
  1. In your Moodle course, turn editing on, choose Assignment: Advanced upload of files (required for response file from teacher). 
  2. Provide name and instructions. Choose the desired options (uploading one file is enough):w-2
  3. A gradebook column will be automatically created, and will be initially empty.w0c-gb-whole
  4. Instruct your students how to take the MS-Word upload assignment, and when (if you leave the default availability/due date on, the assignment will automatically appear in their Moodle Calendar, and can appear in their Ninermail calendar).
Categories: audience-is-teachers, documentation, lms, service-is-learning-materials-creation, Writing Tags: , ,

How to do writing assignments in Moodle with deadlines, file and response file upload and MS-Word tracked changes

2012/01/20 Leave a comment
  1. Benefits
    1. Keep the cohort in shape and focus it on studying by enforcing deadlines.
    2. You can have students automatically receive reminders of the upcoming deadlines from their calendar (in NINERMAIL, no need to even look at the Moodle Calendar)
    3. You can save time managing the assignment.
      1. Moodle does it for you; you will save even more time once you begin recycling your assignment across terms) and rather provide more timely feedback, and improve changes that your feedback arrives during a teachable moment.
      2. Automatic email notifications,  which are available in Moodle for teachers (if you do not prefer to grade student submissions in a batch) and students to (automatic correction and grading is not ready for prime-time when it comes to essay writing; you may however consider teaching some more basic writing skills using it with close-exercises in Moodle).
    4. Costs
      1. You need to TBA:create a Moodle file upload assignment for writing (once)
      2. You need to grade a Moodle file upload assignment for writing (any time you assign; depending on your preference as submissions arrive or conveniently as a batch from the gradebook past the deadline)
        1. I prefer the MS-Word reviewing features for grading writing assignments,
        2. but other tools have other affordances, e.g. like recently described here for Adobe Acrobat Professional.
      3. Moodle does not automatically add unique usernames to student submitted files like Blackboard. It also does not afford the TBA:convenience of a shared network storage that the WebDAV-based Blackboard Content system provides. However, as long as you do not need to maintain a local archive of student submissions, you can rely on the Moodle gradebook managing the archive of assignment files (student submissions and teacher response files).
      4. How? These 4 posts guide you through the entire workflow from teacher to student back to  teacher to student:
        1. How a teacher creates a Moodle file upload assignment for writing
        2. How a student takes a Moodle file upload assignment for writing
        3. How a teacher grades a Moodle file upload assignment for writing
        4. How a student reviews a Moodle file upload assignment for writing
Categories: assignments, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, lms, office-software, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

How a student reviews a Moodle MS-Word file upload assignment for writing

2012/01/18 1 comment
  1. The student can see the submitted grade in her user report:qw6-view-grading-as-permitted-student
  2. She can view the assignment: corrected-assignment-with-response-file-as-permitted-student
  3. from where she can open the corrected MS-word file w7-open-file-as-permitted-student
  4. for more detailed corrective feedback: w2
  5.  
Categories: Arabic, audience-is-students, documentation, e-languages, English, Farsi, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Writing, Yoruba Tags: , ,

How a teacher grades a Moodle MS-Word file upload assignment for writing

2012/01/18 1 comment
  1. Where students have submitted MS-Word files in the Gradebook, click (1) button “Grade”: writing-gradebook
  2. This opens the (2) Feedback window, with the (3) student MS-Word submission: gradebook2feedback
  3. Download the student MS-Word submission by clicking on the link: w0e-open-word-teacher
  4. open with MS-Word:  w0f-open-word-teacher
  5. Correct with track changes turned on (CTRL+SHIFT+E), and save: w0f-save-word-teacher
  6. YOU WILL SAVE under a different filename (suggest adding “_corrected”at the end) INTO YOUR DEFAULT TEMP DIRECTORY, here is a shortcut to get to it: key-combination WIN+R, %temp%, “ “OK”:w0g-upload-temp
  7. Back in Moodle, select your response file from the temporary directory: w0h-teacher-response-upload
  8. Provide (1) Grade and (2) comment, then (3) upload the file: w0h-upload2
  9. Done, you can move to “ Next” w0i
  10. Which is where you are here: now repeat as above (provided student has submitted his file already) w0h-upload4-next
  11. Or view the gradebook, where your results are visible,w0j-gb-last-modified1
  12. including to the student.
  13. Instead of using the Moodle Response File feature, can I just make my corrections in MS-Word and copy/paste the resulting track changes markup into the Moodle Feedback Window Comment textbox? I would not try this. This way, you are not giving the students the full functionality of the track changes feature in MS-Word  for them to continue working with the file. Moreover, whether the basic coloring of track MS-Word’s changes  get preserved, will likely depend on how the web browser that you (and possibly the student later) uses supports the rich edit control of the comment textbox. If you just want to preserve the colors, I would instead try and Save as PDf from MS-Word 2007 and up, and send the PDF as a Response File.
Categories: all-languages, audience-is-teachers, lms, Writing Tags: , ,

How a student takes a Moodle MS-Word file upload assignment for writing

2012/01/12 1 comment

  1. Find your file upload writing assignment and click on it: w0
  2. Read the assignment text, write an MS-Word file (format not required, but your teacher will likely send you MS-Word back if she uses track changes) and attach it, like so:  w0a
  3. If this shows, you have finished the assignment: w0b
  4. Wait for notification, then go TBA:review your teacher’s comments.
Categories: all-languages, audience-is-students, documentation, e-learning, lms, Uncategorized, Writing Tags: , ,