Archive
How a Student takes a Moodle Video Assignment in the LRC
- On one of the LRC iMacs, in the Safari web browser (open new window with COMMAND-key+n),
- go to your Moodle course, (1) find the video Assignment, read the assignment instructions (what your teacher wants you to record). Then click underneath the (2) button: “Add video Assignment”, to open the (3) submission window:
- Note that she will also have to allow the flash player to interact with her webcam first.
If you see no web cam video window, only a black frame, read in.- In the submission window, choose the tab “Webcam” (1), use the dropdown to select the camera hardware (2).
- Check the headset microphone audio: The external headset microphone on the iMacs did not work., but now it does, provided you do this: control-click on Flash’s a video preview window (= the window where you see yourself like in a mirror) for the web camera, and click on “settings”.
-
- Click on the microphone icon :
- Make sure the USB PnP device is selected.
- You can bring up the settings dialogue, make sure the USB PnP device is chosen for audio and CRANK up the microphone input sensitivity! Then, by tabbing (don’t speak yet) on the headset microphone, test the volume levels with the built-in volume meter (should show lots of green bars when you tab). Unlike in the picture, do not choose “reduce echo ”.
-
- Start (3) the video recording.
- Afterwards, the student can review (4) her submission.
- If you don’t like your first recording, (3) “record” over it and review again with (4) “Play”. If you do this and the video appears frozen, drag the timeline cursor forward to get the re-recorded video to play. If this does not seem to work, you are likely still able to submit your 2nd attempt, just not review it again.
- Click through all the “Next”etc. buttons:
-
- until you get to the feedback page for the student (caveat: in IE9, the video does not fit into the frame provided on the page).
- Note, it warns you to be patient now:
-
- LRC support:
- Depending on your hardware (webcam), software and network support, you can record your language speaking video assignments on any device that has a webcam and a browser that supports flash – and even more devices, if you are willing to post process and upload the video clip.
- If you run into problems or want to use a tested setup, we recommend using the LRC. Since our PCs have no built-in or added webcam (proposed), we can currently only use our 5 8 iMacs (see LRC Layout, see Classroom Calendar and iMacs Calendar for availability). Our (limited) tests worked better in Safari than Firefox.
Successful test of the new streaming video recording assignment for language proficiency assessment in Moodle.
- Video recordings allow for a more authentic assessment of spoken language proficiency. Today, we could test a new Moodle video assignment type for Almut’s Summer II Elementary German II class: Preparing a natural sounding statement on one’s favorite holiday. This Moodle assignment type is an extension to students of the teacher video upload tool using a service Kaltura – we hinted at that earlier.
- Teachers, when editing their Moodle course, can find this assignment type in the dropdown: Activity as “Video”.
- The assignment options: Note that creating a video assignment is pretty much the same as creating other assignments in Moodle, and so is grading, except instead of reading, you view the submission, right within the web page.
- An example of guiding questions for a recording assignment is here (topic: holiday, language: German):
- Here is how the teacher sees the student submission in the gradebook.
- Caveat: in Safari, we were not able to close the video popup, after viewing it from the class roster, and could only back out of the entire gradebook. Instead, from the roster, first open the page with the individual student submission, and review the video there on that page:
- For the student experience, see here.
- Further reading: The CTL has a number of step-by-step instructions which we recommend for further reading: Student Video Assignment, and specifically for students: Upload a Video for a Video Assignment; for instructors: Grading Video Assignment Submissions.
- The LRC had originally prepared to record the students with our old, handheld mini-DV cameras, import the movie into iMovie or Windows Movie Maker, then find a way to get the files (with easily identifiable submitter names) to the teachers. Hitherto, our best option was compression of the video to to fit into the Moodle 64MB file upload size limit (which, even if you decide to shoot and produce your video elsewhere and bring it as an uploadable file to the assignment , does not apply to the Video assignment either).
- Preliminary testing seems to indicate that video recording of pairs/dialogues is also possible with the LRC’s webcam setup . However, because of the angle restrictions, capturing such sessions will be less natural.
- Overall, the new Moodle video assignment seems a major improvement for all parties – students, teachers and support –, and can help with more authentic assessment of
Keyboard overlay stickers improve foreign character writing support in the LRC
Some non-western, but character-based languages benefit from having keyboard overlay stickers installed. Here is a list of what the LRC has:
| Amount | Languages | installed@ |
| 3 | Arabic | 1 list. station, 2 rightmost computers in the front row of the left (teacher perspective) half of the main classroom |
| 2 | Farsi | 2 rightmost computers in the middle row of the left (teacher perspective) half of the main classroom |
| 1 | Greek | 1 list. station |
| 3 | Russian | 1 list. station, 2 rightmost computers of the rear row of the left (teacher perspective) half of the main classroom |
Here are photos of the Arabic and Cyrillic keyboards:
We installed the stickers, so that they reflect the software layout of the keyboard that you get when choosing the respective language from the international toolbar. Note that the letters marked in red on the Cyrillic keyboard picture below are not supported by the Russian keyboard layout:
Since only one set can be added to any existing physical keyboard, the teacher computer keyboard can not have an overlay. The student computers with overlays are the listening stations and computers 6,7,12,13,18,19 on the LRC layout map.
Remember that the On-screen-keyboard software remains accessible at all PC’s through clicking “Start”, “Run”, typing “OSK”, clicking "OK".
Example where you can get your own keyboard overlay stickers.
MS-Maren Morph helps reading Arabic web pages
This new IE accelerator tool from MS-Innovation Lab Cairo which provides morphological analysis, translations, derivatives, inflections, and more, is available for Internet Explorer 8 and higher from the Maren Morph homepage, or on the LRC PCs.
Recommend also checking out the other MS-Afkar tools, which are primarily designed for facilitating computer use of Arabic native speakers, but of considerable use also for learners of Arabic:
- Microsoft Maren Transliteration which we also have installed in the LRC
- Microsoft Maren Autocomplete which helps writing Arabic
- Microsoft Maren Multilingual which suggests Arabic equivalents for words input in English
Arabic character input tools in the LRC: MS-Maren and Fontboard-Arabic
“Lack of access to an Arabic keyboard or lack of familiarity with one are two of the most common problems preventing Arabic users from communicating in their own language. Microsoft Maren is a Windows extension that comes to the rescue, allowing you to type Arabic in Roman characters (Romanized Arabic, Arabizi, Arabish or Franco-Arabic) and have it converted on the fly to Arabic script. Maren integrates seamlessly with Windows and works in most Windows applications and websites.”. “Maren Transliteration enables the use of an English keyboard to spell out text in what is called ‘romanized’ Arabic. Maren Transliteration then shows the user options in Arabic script.”
The fontboard “Arabic keyboard created by Zsigri Gyula more closely resembles the sounds and shapes of the US English QWERTY keyboard.It is extremely helpful if you do not type in Arabic on a regular basis, and it is without a doubt more intuitive than the Arabic keyboards Microsoft provides.”
These tools can be downloaded from the links and are, if you use the LRC, accessible from the desktop: 
Protected: How to conduct an easy oral exam with Sanako1200 (Model imitation/Question Response) – Part II: Implementation/instruction of examined students
Foreign Language Character Input on Windows XP in the LRC
The LRC offers the following foreign language characters writing support:
| American English | us international | not needed | us-int |
| Arabic | Google;MS;MS-maren;fontboard | maybe later, now osk | demo |
| British English | us international | not needed | us-int |
| Dutch | us international | not needed | us-int |
| Farsi | Google;MS | maybe later, now osk | demo |
| French | us international | not needed | us-int |
| German | us international | not needed | us-int |
| Greek | Google;MS | maybe later, now osk | demo |
| Italian | us international | not needed | us-int |
| Japanese | MS | not needed | |
| Korean | MS | maybe later, now osk | demo |
| Mandarin | MS;pinyinput | not needed | pinyin |
| Portuguese (Brazilian) | us international | not needed | us-int |
| Russian | Google;MS | maybe later, now osk | demo |
| Spanish | us international | not needed | us-int |
The support is best accessed from the “international toolbar”, like so: 
You can also use the windows on-screen keyboard to input non-Western characters on a computer that has not the corresponding keyboard overlay stickers. In the small-group workspaces, which have writing pads, you can also use the MS-Handwriting IME for East-Asian languages.
How to: Send email with non-western (e.g. Japanese) characters in Outlook Web Access (e.g. 2003, e.g. from Safari)
- If your emails with Japanese sent from Safari arrive with unreadable characters (squares or question marks, meaning the recipient’s computer cannot decode how to display the character your computer sent), you may have set your browser to the wrong characterr encoding.
- However, the encoding Unicode (e.g. UTF-8) can handle both western and .
- Simply go to Safari (similarly in other browsers)/ Preferences / Appearances / Default Encoding and change to UTF-8, like so:
- This has been tested to work already from/to OWA 2003.
- However, for your reference, here a matrix of imminent upgrades of email clients on your computer and the corresponding university server software:
|
When? |
Your office computer |
recommended? |
Any computer (travel, home) |
University server |
|
|
mac |
pc |
|
|||
|
soon |
Outlook 2011 |
Outlook 2010 |
is better than |
Outlook web access 2010 |
Exchange 2010 |
|
recommended? |
is better than |
is better than |
|
is better than |
is better than |
|
now |
Entourage (limited support for Exchange) |
Outlook 2007 |
is better than |
Outlook web access 2003 |
Exchange 2003 |
Questions? Read the About. Or just ask me a quick Our Databases: Resources with calendars -- Language learning material Moodle Sites, multimedia files -- films
FAQs for LRC student staff or for students or for teachers. To search our FAQs, in the browser addressbar, add after "https://plagwitz.wordpress.com/feed/?tag=faqs+/" "+TAG1" (from tag cloud below) OR "https://plagwitz.wordpress.com/feed/tag=faqs
&category_name=" "CAT1" (from category hierarchy below). OR search both categories and tags, and multiple TAGs/CATs (connect with "," for OR-search, with "+" for AND-search), like so: https://plagwitz.wordpress.com/feed/?tag=TAG1+TAG2+...TAGn&category_name=CAT1
+CAT2+...CATn"
Other ways to find help
If you cannot find it here, look there: 5,500 Language-Learning Links and Programs for learning or teaching 150 languages
Shortcuts:Our Lists, Our Maps, LRC Staff Moodle Site,LRC Project Moodle Site, 49erexpress, UNCC Moodle, Student Recordings: s:claslcslrcsanakostudent
Learning usage samples: Sanako oral exam, Kaltura webcam presentation, Dictation with speech recognition, Sanako written exam, Chinese and Japanese interactive stroke-order practice
Test the Sanako Installer, Webbrowser Popup Konfigurator for XP, or Windows7, faster LRC TeacherPC Log-in Let MS facilitate diacritics writing by installing for you US-International keyboard layout
This is my personal blog (Google+). The views expressed on these pages are mine alone and not those of my employer. The information in this weblog is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Thomas' Work Space 