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Foreign Language Character Input on Windows 7 in the LRC

2012/08/16 1 comment
  1. The LRC, now on Windows 7, is testing  Carly J. Born’s U.S. International Extended 2.0 Keyboard, an improvement on the previously used US International Keyboard (still recommended for personal use, as it comes standard with all but ancient versions of Windows) for typing accented characters in Western languages, Pinyin-tone-marks for Mandarin (replacing the also useful, but more evolved Pinyinput), and other SLA tone- and length-marks e.g. for Latin.
  2. Not limited to specific application, you can use anywhere in Windows the following shortcut’s – taken from the original developer documentation (with some minor modifications).
  3. We hope you find the benefit for SLA far outweighs the need to getting used to typing a space between the 2 red characters and a vowel, in order to produce their regular form, without creating a foreign language character.

acute accent, pinyin 2nd tone

apostrophe (= ‘), vowel

(e.g. á é í ó ú)

grave accent, pinyin 4th tone

grave (= `), vowel

(e.g. à è ì ò ù)

c cedilla

comma apostrophe, c

(e.g. ç)

macron accent, pinyin 1st tone

hyphen, vowel

(e.g. ā ē ī ō ū )

vowel with umlaut

double-quote (= “), vowel

(e.g. ä ë ï ö ü ÿ)

vowel with circumflex

shift+6 (= ^), vowel

(e.g. â ê î ô û)

pinyin 3rd tone

Shift+5, vowel

(e.g. ǎ ě ǐǒǔ)

ü with pinyin tones

Accent, double-quote

(e.g. ǖǘǚǜ)

letter with tilde

tilde (= ~), letter

(e.g. õ ñ ã)

letter with dot below

shift+period, letter

(e.g. ạ ẹ Ẹ ị ọ ụ)

letter with double acute

shift+; , o or u

(e.g. ő, ű, Ő, Ű)

«

ctrl + alt + [

»

ctrl + alt + ]

ctrl + alt + 5

ß

ctrl + alt + s/right-ALT + s

ø

ctrl + alt + l

[won’t work in word, onenote, but works in excel]

¿

ctrl + alt + /

¡

ctrl + alt + 1

[To type ¡, disable the command called ApplyHeading1 in the Format category, in word or onenote, but not needed in excel]

œ

Right alt + k

Making audio cues for model imitation/question-response oral exams with Sanako Study 1200

We can easily record and post-process audio files in the LRC for use with the Sanako Study 1200 oral exam activities.

This can work not only  for outcome exams (course- or chapter-wise), but also or formative assessment:

Think converting your textbook-based “drills” into Sanako, like repetitively recapitulating the newly acquired vocabulary item “donut” with different cues:

Example: “What can you do with [student can enter her favorite new vocabulary item for the current class] on [teacher can ask for one social web service after the other that her students likely are familiar with]?”. In response, student has to practice vocabularry item by forming sentences that fit the vocabulary item that fit like in the whiteboard example.

We can add to these recordings the features explained in the slide below.

image

I’d be happy to play you examples from this slide – and more – in the LRC (not to be published here so that the exam files can be reused).

How the LRC supports Second Language Acquisition (all 4 skills) and testing using computers, and provides requisite documentation and training

Table of contents for 2 screencasts of a presentation, left screen slides/no audio, right screen/speaker audio – best viewed side-by-side.

Time in LRC-report-speaker

Time in LRC-report-slides

Topic

Subtopic

0:00

Overview of LRC activities

0:00

0:40

SLA reading

0:02

1:10

SLA writing

1:00

high-stakes quiz screencast: http://goo.gl/AaGrK

3:40

Movie caption exercise generation using NLP

5:45

2:35

SLA listening

Text-to-speech Deskbot

7:15

4:00

example of time-stretched audio

10:00

10:10

SLA speaking

Moodle Kaltura for webcam recordings homework assignments

12:30

Sanako oral exams

15:00

Example of oral exam material

16:40

15:45

Classroom management systems

27:15

Outlook: LRC as proficiency assessment/testing center, outreach/service to high schools

16:40

Example of oral proficiency exam

28:30

Needed additions: video streaming to students, video recordings from students

30:10

Question period

30:10

LRC media repositories

33:30

Infrastructure work:

Year1:Ghost+imaging

33:35

Year2:LRC calendars (room reservation, equipment circulation, staff timetabling)

34:25

Outlook: things that need to be fixed in LRC calendars

39:25

39:45

19:45

LRC Blog

39:45

Querying tags and categories

45:00

tags, categories, RSS feeds displayed in internet explorer tag display,

55:20

Using tags/categories searches of the LRC blog in training teachers and students

57:25

Q:TOEFL, AP exams and other oral proficiency assessment –

58:45

Webcape placement exams and other written exam in the LRC

59:30

Q:Concurrent exam scheduling

Sanako has no scheduling system to allow a limited number of users to take an exam simultaneously (but it prevents users beyond the licensing seats to use the Sanako, including for exams), Scheduling plug-ins seem to be available for Moodle.

61:40

Outlook: Need more licenses for the Sanako to match the UNCC class size

Spring 2012 Faculty Workshop II: Oral Proficiency testing with Audacity/Sanako

  1. View screens (best viewed side by side, but note that left and right screen are not synchronized):
    1. for full slide show (note the included short links for convenient further reading), left screen
    2. for Sanako interface and full audio track, right screen.
  2. Table of contents:
    1. Overview of a Sanako Oral Exam
    2. Examples of Exam teachers’ exam question recordings
    3. Example of a Sanako Exam
    4. Loop induction
      1. creating an exam question recording
      2. by taking a Sanako exam as a student
    5. Step-by-Step of administering a Sanako oral exam
    6. Grading Sanako oral exam student files
      1. Sanako voice insert for
        1. facilitating recording oral assignments for student without hard-coded pauses
        2. commenting on student responses during grading
    7. Sanako authoring tool for providing visual on top of aural cues to students
  3. workshop-2012-2-sanako-ppt-thumbnails

How to use visual instead of aural cues during a Sanako oral proficiency exam

  1. This exam file has been authored with the Sanako Study 1200 TBA:authoring tool. It is displayed from  the Sanako tutor application:
    1. images on a projection screen connected to the teacher computer,
    2. aural portion through the tutor-controlled Sanako student player and headsets. 
  2. To protect the integrity and allow for reuse of the exam, only the initial instruction, example and collection of the results of an exam with visual cues are shown in this screencast.

Protected: Sanako Study 1200 Final oral exam for advanced Business Spanish: A Job interview

2012/04/19 Enter your password to view comments.

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Apply for STARTALK Travel grants for Summer Institute on LCTL by 5/1/2012

“The Penn Center for Foreign Language Teaching and Learning with Technology (PLC) will host the second STARTALK Excellence in Leadership Summer Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. For each of the languages (Chinese, Dari, Hindi, Swahili, Turkish and Urdu), the Summer Institute invites no more than five participants for each language group. These participants must hold positions as principals, supervisors of world language and/or language program directors who wish to implement curricular changes, employ pedagogically-sound applications of technology and gain leadership know-how in an effort to strengthen, expand and solidify their respective programs. These leaders will become STARTALK multiplicators who in turn will promote and implement programmatic and curricular changes. The program of the Summer Institute is designed for Leader-Teachers to:
 
•      gain leadership know-how
•      strengthen existing programs
•      expand and solidify programs
•      discuss current pedagogical trends in language education
•      promote and implement curricular changes
•      endorse lasting efficacy of robust learning outcomes
•      practice pedagogically-sound applications of technology
•      engage in succinct field building opportunities
 
Applications are due May 1, 2012.  To apply and for information about travel and accommodations, please visit our website at:
 
http://www.plc.sas.upenn.edu/elsi2012/Application.html

Protected: Spring 2012 Faculty Workshop I: How to ease your end-of-term oral assessment burden with the help of the LRC Moodle Kaltura and Sanako Study 1200 oral assessments

2012/04/06 Enter your password to view comments.

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