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Archive for the ‘technology-domains-is-any’ Category
How to save your MS-Office files on SkyDrive
2013/11/18
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- Having to work on important documents from different locations – including office, classroom, and home – and getting tired of lugging thumb drives around (or worried about losing or inadvertently destroying them)?
- Use your university email and your password from last June (this one does not get force-updated every 90 days any more, you can manage it yourself).
- Upload your important files:
- Drag and drop, e.g. a PowerPoint file:
- Click the file – e.g. a Word file – to view it in your web browser.
- To edit the file , while viewing, click top menu: “Edit document”. Choose between editing it in the browser (has still some – ever fewer – limitations for complex documents)
- You will have to log in again (on a non-shared computer I prefer to choose to be “signed in automatically”).
- You have to click “Enable Editing” again, but then you are in your familiar MS-Word environment.
- No need to re-upload the file: Save and close your file, when you open it again in the web browser, it got synched automatically:
- To keep an additional local file backup, use the free MS-SkyDrive App which sets up a local copy of your MS-SkyDrive cloud storage – useful when you have to work offline (e.g. I used to travel every weekend on a plane, but needed to make good use of my travel time).
- Troubleshooting: If you run into problems, the first thing to try usually is a different web browser.
How to control students’ access to internet and local apps with Sanako Study 1200
2013/11/18
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Straight from the documentation, straight under your fingertips in the tutor interface, and most useful during assessments, but also for individual students that won’t stay on task.
Use CTRL+TAB to switch between tabs in Chrome kiosk fullscreen mode
2013/11/15
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- On the reception desk, when you open the NINERMAIL after logging into 49erexpress, Chrome opens NINERMAIL in another full screen tab (which hides the 49erexpress tab) – unlike full screen Internet Explorer, which opened NINERMAIL in a new window, but which we had to abandon with the introduction of offfice365.
- The 49erepxress tab is hidden, but still there, and you can switch between full screen tabs wit hthe keyboard shortcut CTRL+TAB (hold CTRL and pressing TAB repeatedly will cycle through all open Chrome tabs).
- So when a client is finished with NINEMAIL (meeting request), have them not only log out of NINERMAIL, but also CTRL+TAB back to the 49erexpress tab to log them out of 49express (and browse from the result window to the Sign-in link to be ready for the next client).
- No need to close the NINERMAIL tab. Next time somebody logs in to 49erexpress tab, Chrome will recycle the previous NINERMAIL tab.
How to compare two MS-Word documents for plagiarism detection
2013/11/14
2 comments
- You could start with the document properties
- some students leave even the author and editing time in. However, author does not prove any wrong doing, a student may have borrowed a laptop, including its MS-word installation, to author a document and submit it
- It may actually be more of an indicator of something illicit if document properties are empty.
- Students have likely used the “Document inspector”:
- (1): File / (2) Info, (3) view the properties (this document looks like it had its privacy information removed), you can use (4) to view even more.
- to remove all privacy relevant information, like so: (5) unfold “check for issues”, (6) “inspect document””,
- in the window: “document inspector”, click
, you will be given the option to “remove all”personal information: 
- (1): File / (2) Info, (3) view the properties (this document looks like it had its privacy information removed), you can use (4) to view even more.
- However, removing personal information can be perfectly legitimate, unless something else was assigned. And it does not help plagiarizers cover their tracks anyway, for…
- …there is the more substantial “compare” documents feature which (even though it was developed for the legal profession, as blackline) tracks what really counts: content changes.
- Access it form the ribbon’s “review” tab:
- point the tool to your 2 documents:
- make your life easier by selecting on the “review” tab to view only content changes (formatting comparisons is noise for plagiarism detection):
- You get a handy (here blurred, but still demonstrating the amount of similarity (=black), compared with changes (= blue), between the 2 documents ) overview of (from the left)
- list of changes
- view of changes in a merged document (which you can save)
- original document
- secondary (likely plagiarized) document:
- The feature is nice, but only moderately intelligent (see the first match, I would obviously not count that as substantially different) and best used with discretion, to make it easier for a teacher to decide how likely it is that these similarities are accidental.
- In this instance, even if the teacher questions are not counted, it seems obvious that only minor alterations were made to the original document and many responses, including quite lengthy sentences, are entirely the same.
- While this *is* an instructional use, you can find happier instructional uses of MS-Word’s reviewing/tracking changes feature here.
- Access it form the ribbon’s “review” tab:
Categories: audience-is-teachers, e-learning, office-software, service-is-assessing, Writing
comparing, FAQs, MS-Word, plagiarism, reviewing, track-changes
Finding a balance between speed of log-in and readiness on help desk computers
2013/11/11
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- Problem:
- The LRC reception desk has 3 computers, each with 2 screens, one client-facing, that, when not shared during collaboration for clerical tasks, display (LRC assistants have been instructed which screen has to show which information) LRC-related information (LRC calendar, home page with news and FAQs, slide show with signs).
- However, when a teacher was bringing student to Spanish tutor after tutoring hours, I noticed, that no LRC calendar was visible at reception desk (SAFARI on rightmost computer), nor could be loaded easily.
- Upon my asking, LRC assistant reported, Firefox never comes up correctly on her computer.
- What I could observe: Firefox came up with 2 windows w/o preconfigured tabs.
- Safari came up with 2 windows , also empty.
- Root cause:
- It turned out that other students did not have this issue when logging in on the computers.
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It also turned out that the offending student’s profile had been frozen prematurely (in an obsolete state not incorporating changes we had to do during the term to maintain functionality of the reception desk computers in a changing campus IT environment).
- Workaround: Unfreeze the computer, delete the prematurely frozen profiles, have the student log in to recreate it using current default user settings, freeze the computer, to make the computer, 3 weeks before classes end…
- Solution: not sure I have one.
- Trying to have everything set up stably at term start is not the solution, but the problem.
- How can agility be increased?
- LRC assistants need to report problems. They may need better training to be aware of problems, and need an incentive to report problems, and a culture where reporting problems is not considered a problem in itself, but an achievement.
- The LRC lost its Symantec-Ghost imaging infrastructure which it could not only use for the lab PCs, but also to maintain 3 identical computers at its reception desk. This requirement for imaging was not considered during the recent upgrade of the labs imaging infrastructure, and we do not know how to get this capability back.
Categories: e-infrastructure, Reception-desk
ms-windows, profiles, symantec-ghos, t, xp
How to create screencasts of student presentations for the language learner ePortfolio in the digital audio lab
2013/11/08
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- Students can now easily video-record their own screens during class presentations – not only when using PowerPoint; instead students could demo a website, like their Facebook page.
- Last year, we were limited to PowerPoint’s record slideshow with timing and narration feature, and either send the PPSX (small, but requires the PowerPoint viewer) or the “Save as” video (new in PowerPoint 2010; computing intensive and large file size).
- Now with MS-Community Clips, screencasts are
- minimal effort to create (keyboard shortcut WIN+ALT+R or T; save on desktop; drag/drop into Sanako homework folder)
- and little effort to distribute:
- Students could have uploaded to a Moodle’ file upload assignment (default file size limit: 64MB) or Kaltura file upload assignment (not sure whether there is a size limit). This seems more suitable for assignments with screencasts recordings.
- In this instance
- Sanako collected the Homework files to the Sanako share,
- my langlabemailer emailed them as attachment (so far tested to allow for 25MB attachment size, the equivalent of 7-8 minute screencast, a hefty space to fill in L2! We also established: 45MB is too much…
) to the originating student and teacher, for review, grading –
- and – provided it passes muster as an attractive and significant piece – possibly for re-use in the student’s language learner ePortfolio.
- In addition,
- Before the presentations, the teacher easily collaborated on proof-reading the slide decks of individual students, by using the Sanako Remote control screen sharing feature.
- During the presentation, students followed more closely – which seemed to increase their attention and comprehension -, thanks to audio and screen being shared to them from the presenter, using the Sanako’s “Model student” feature.
Categories: Arabic, audience-is-teachers, digital-audio-lab, e-languages, English, eportfolio, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Hindi, Italian, Japanese, learning-usage-samples, Mandarin, multimedia-recording, office-software, Portuguese, presentations, Presenter-Computer, Russian, Spanish, Speaking, Student-Computers
file-upload, homework-activity, kaltura, langlabemailer, model-student, moodle, ms-community-clips, ms-powerpoint, sanako-study-1200, screensharing, videos
How to workaround AntWordProfiler error “Cannot open the file”
2013/11/07
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- Seems a little bug in this otherwise great program. I started getting this on Windows 7 64-bit with
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for all files, no matter which size. - It occurred to me to go to menu: Settings/ global settings / file settings / show full pathnames
- Here is what you see: Note the duplicate path to the file.
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How did I get there? Seems like you cannot take my usual preferred shortcut and paste the full file path into the browse dialogue.
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If I browse to the file and select, the same botched up double path does not appear:
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I can then process the file fine.
How to record your screen with MS-Community Clips
2013/11/06
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- During presentations, when creating demonstrations etc., it can be useful to record your screen (and your voice, if you speak into the headphone microphone). In the LRC, we have MS Community Clips pre-installed for this purpose. To start recording:
- To stop recording, follow the same steps, but in step 3 choose “stop”.
- Or forget about the menus and remember the keyboard shortcuts: WIN+ALT+R or T.
- The video will play automatically. Click stop, menu: Save, Save your recording where you need it (e.g. Desktop).
- If your teacher wants you to submit your recording, in the LRC you can drop it into the Sanako Homework window and “send” it:
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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
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