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Protected: Native speaker recordings for Voilà vocabulary

2013/09/12 Enter your password to view comments.

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Categories: e-languages, French, projects, service-is-learning-materials-creation Tags: ,

New issues with Respondus-lockdown-browser

2013/09/04 Leave a comment
  1. Problem description:
    1. Upon starting the quiz, Students are asked to select the right Moodle server (assuming Moodle2 is the right answer – how long will this step be necessary?) CAM01093
    2. When they are finished with the quiz, Students receive a combined “Ar required parameter is missing” (a link with “more information on this error” is offered underneath the red error message, but cannot be opened) and “Link is blocked” error CAM01087CAM01088
    3. before they reach the “SAVED” screen with the “submit all and finish”button: Meaning their attempt was not saved and since it cannot be submitted, will be lost.
    4. When logging in on a different computer,  and starting the quiz in Lockdown browser, it tells students that the attempt is in progress,
    5. upon continue, they have to start afresh (nothing has been saved).
    6. This is on version from Dec 6 , 2012.CAM01098
  2. Workaround: Restarting the quiz on a different computer has been the best workaround I have seen so far.
Categories: French, Learning-logs, lms Tags: ,

Wacom Bamboo Tablet enables Teacher to draw characters for class

2013/09/03 Leave a comment
  1. We set up one of the Wacom Tablets which we have used for Hanzi/Kanji/Hanja  practice in our student group rooms, at the LRC teacher station. Benefit:
    1. drawing characters where typing (including with IMEs) is not a satisfactory option. This includes
      1. IPA
        1. I noticed phonetics teachers making heavy use of the whiteboard and document camera/projector to transcribe.
        2. We tested a Phonetics keyboard, but remembering your keyboard shortcuts has a learning curve;
        3. Besides, the keyboard is currently not user-switchable.
      2. stroke-order demonstration for East-Asian languages.
    2. Unlike the document camera, the Wacom could be set up at the teacher station – no need to move to the other end of the room, and works without need for the video switch we consider replacing.
    3. To use, you can 
      1. e.g. start MS-paint (click start-button, “Run”, type “mspaint”, click “OK”)),
      2. select the “pencil” menu icon to the right of the center here: image ,
      3. remove the pen from pouch on the side of the wacom tablet next to the keyboard,
      4. draw digitally with the pen tip (soft),
      5. select the “eraser”menu icon to the right of the center here: image
      6. turn the pen and rub to digitally erase (or “select all”and press the “del” key), 
      7. finally save the drawing, if you want to reuse it or share it with students (e.g. using the Sanako playlist ).
    4. To change settings, go to the control panel (click start-button, “Run”, type “control”, click “OK”and start the Wacom Bamboo Control Panel Applet,
      1. if you do not like the Wacom tablet input panel being set to represent the entire left screen that is visible to students on the projector.
      2. if you are not right-handed,
      3. etc.
Categories: audience-is-teachers, French, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Speaking, Writing Tags: , ,

Freely downloadable samples from the IPA Phonetics Handbook

2013/08/21 Leave a comment
  1. This handbook provides audio pronunciation samples (in WAV) for many different languages. While they are more useful in conjunction with the book, they also can be searched by filename (= the pronounced word in English translation).
  2. We make these file accessible in the LRC on the Sanako share (S:\COAS\LCS\LRC\media\TUTOR\phonetics\ipa-phonetics-handbook\). Here are the languages included:.
    1. American-English
    2. Amharic
    3. Arabic
    4. Bulgarian
    5. Cantonese
    6. Catalan
    7. Croatian
    8. Czech
    9. Dutch
    10. French
    11. Galician
    12. German
    13. Hausa
    14. Hebrew
    15. Hindi
    16. Hungarian
    17. Igbo
    18. Irish
    19. Japanese
    20. Korean
    21. Persian
    22. Portuguese
    23. Sindhi
    24. Slovene
    25. Swedish
    26. Thai
    27. Turkish
Categories: Arabic, e-languages, Farsi, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, learning-materials, Mandarin, Portuguese Tags: ,

Example 6: How even a false beginner can work with foreign language Speech recognition on Windows 7 Enterprise

2013/08/14 Leave a comment
  1. Executive summary: Don’t let initial poor speech recognition results discourage your from using this feature. Results will much improve if you go through a few minutes of the built-in voice training for speech recognition. Like in the last 30 seconds of this video.
  2. With the upgrade to Windows 7 Enterprise in the LRC – and the continued availability of high-quality Sanako headphones on the majority of LRC PCs – , we can now offer speech recognition in a number of foreign languages – including French.
  3. This feature can be used for language learning exercises, including dictation, like in this example. How robust is windows 7 speech recognition?
  4. You can expose yourself to some embarrassingly bad French in this screencast – and that is the point. (My French is limited to a mere 2 high school years of 3-hour per week voluntary French studies, more than 30 years ago, no practice since).
  5. The screencast shows how even a (false) beginner can,
    1. 0:00-1:00: from terrible initial results,
    2. 11:45-12:10: considerably improve (not make perfect!) the foreign language (here French) speech recognition on Windows 7,
    3. 1:00-10:40: by going through the built-in voice training.
  6. The LRC computers are “frozen”between reboots, but students still need to train them only once, since they can back up and restore their training data easily.
  8. (This is not proof of the overall validity of the recognition – for that, you are better off watching this screencast with Windows 7 Enterprise speech recognition in German).
Categories: assignments, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, French, Operating-system, Screencasts, Speaking Tags: ,

Protected: How to configure the LangLabEmailer for your school, and share back

2013/06/07 Enter your password to view comments.

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Categories: Arabic, assessments, assignments, audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, compiledcode, digital-audio-lab, e-languages, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, service-is-programming, Spanish, Speaking, Swahili, Writing, Yoruba Tags: ,

Cheatsheet for typing phonetic symbols with the IPA Keyboard Layout on Windows 7 – the ultimate training…

2013/03/28 Leave a comment

…using animated .gifs. Slower? Compact: 0.25sec, 0.5sec, 0.75sec, 1sec, 1.5sec, 2sec, 3sec, 4sec, 5sec, 6sec, 7sec, 8sec, 9sec, 10sec.

This is taken straight from the great documentation of this great Phonetic symbols Windows keyboard layout by SILS international, but needed a bit of massaging to support hands-free lookup via display on one screen of your dual screen system, while you learn or demo the keyboard to the class).  Users without dual screen (including students) are better off with the slideshow below in which they can stop the images on any page:

View album

View album

View album

The IPA MSKLC can produce both regular Roman characters and transcriptions with phonetic symbols by employing certain “dead keys”  that can be combined with regular keys. Just and like our default LRC keyboard us-international .

Your first must select the keyboard like so. image (Icelandic is suitable since it is not used for other purposes much).  In the LRC, you must wait until we upgrade to Windows7.

Categories: animated-GIFs, Arabic, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, cheat-sheets, e-languages, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (ancient), Greek (modern), Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Presenter-Computer, Russian, service-is-documenting, Spanish, Speaking, Swahili, Uncategorized, Yoruba Tags: , ,

How a teacher can adapt a Sanako teacher-controlled class recording activity for individual student recordings

2013/03/12 Leave a comment
  1. Pedagogical need:
    1. A teacher wants her students to record a presentation,
    2. but allow the students to move around freely in their recording afterwards, when evaluating it, and submit the best out of 3 tries:
  2. Technical implementation:
    1. Using Sanako activity:model imitation of differing for multiple groups
      1. offers maximum control, least flexibility: students have to speak their presentation linearly
      2. if you anticipate presentations of considerably different lengths
        1. first try asking your students – might be useful to them anyway to realize if theirs turns out to be much shorter than others,
        2. if students are unsure about the length of their presentation,
          1. conduct the first recording with the entire class and
          2. have students note what time their recorder time counter is at when they finish, and send you the time as text via the button:envelope
          3. group your students (grouping step-by-step) into Sessions A-F by incrementing  time according to what the student icon bubble shows
        3. then differentiate class into as many groups as necessary (if <= the 6 “sessions”A-F  Sanako Study 1200 offers) end the recording at a different time for each group
      3. for each group (one or more up to 6),
        1. choose from dropdown activity:  model imitation recording
          1. and from dropdown: source: none) with more than one group at a time,
          2. and (optionally) for not more than one group at a time (suggest choosing the biggest group for that) from (dropdown: source: file )  the  background noise to play
        2. and after each group’s allocated time (+ buffer) is up,
        3. press button:end to end the recording
        4. after collection of the recordings from students is finished, you can
        5. press button:replay image, to let each student listen to her recording (linearly, without control), and
        6. press button:free image, to let  students freely move back and forth on the timeline)
        7. eventually, press button: clear, to be ready:
      4. for tries 2 and 3: repeat above steps.
    2. using Sanako activity: self access:
      1. provides
        1. the teacher some  control (none over this turning into more of an editing than coherent language practice exercise),
        2. and students more flexibility (hence requiring prior recording training for students);
      2. students individually
        1. record
        2. move around freely in the file
        3. replay
        4. record over prior footage and/or start completely over  (menu: File / new)
        5. press button:envelope to text message the teacher that they are finished and want their (final )  recording to be collected by the teacher
      3. teacher
        1. moves signaling students into a group  (grouping step-by-step) that is
          1. dedicated for collecting recordings (TBA:does this not empty their buffer?)
          2. and button:pc control: locked (= no further or accidental changes)
        2. once an appropriate  (compromise between finished students wanting to leave and teacher not having to collect each recording individually) number of students have been added to this group, presses
          1. button: end to collect and
          2. button: clear session to clear the button
        3. assesses the recordings in the folder that opens with audacity;
          1. in case of problems, moves students  back to the group dedicated to recording
          2. else lets students leave
Categories: Arabic, assessments, audience-is-teachers, digital-audio-lab, e-languages, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, multimedia-recording, Polish, Portuguese, Presenter-Computer, Russian, service-is-assessing, Spanish, Speaking, step-by-step-guides, Student-Computers, Swahili, Yoruba Tags: ,