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Language Lab Techniques for Producing Audio Learning Materials
If you have a digital audio lab, beginning and intermediate SLA classes can benefit from you creating audio learning materials of type model/imitation or question/response:
Your students will speak more and can get more (automated and immediate) feedback for comparison. Instructors will evaluate and grade faster.
While students will likely use the audio recorder which comes with your digital audio lab, for both creating and evaluating learning materials, I recommend the free audio editor Audacity.
Also download the lame mp3 encoder and point audacity to it when your first export to MP3 from the file-menu.
Here are 2 screencasts to get you started :
- a basic recording and editing introduction (audacity_introduction.wmv) as well as
- a typical post-production task to ready the recording for use in the audio lab (audacity_inserting_gaps_notifications4students.wmv).
Also see this post about evaluating student output with audacity.
How to configure a re-imaged (syspreped) Sanako Lab 300
1. On each of the 30 student computers in the main lab MH441, log in as user “llc-staff”.
2. In the Windows taskbar, click “start”, “run”, type: “c:\Program Files\Sanako\Lab\Lab300\duo\config.exe”, click “OK”.
3. In the “Media Assistant Duo” window that opens, change the field “Workstation number” to the last (one or two: omit leading zeros) digit(s) of the white label at the edge of the monitor that you are working at:
4. 
5. Click button “Finish”, then restart the computer.
Bonus hint:
If your lab goes down again in the middle of the term, check whether your IT department has set up new computers on the sub-network whose network names conflict with the Crossroad naming scheme of the Sanako Lab 300, as seen in the above dialogue and set in the Lab 300 crossroad settings dialogue.
Digitization of the SAVILLE analogue Conference interpreting recording facility: Lecture/Floor recording and CCTV streaming
The original conference interpreting lab setup had no provision for digital video recording of the lecture/floor. A workaround used on of the booth VCRs for analogue recording, with video form an ELMO dome cameras and audio from a lectern microphone – an audio installation which ran in parallel to the main DSI conference interpreting facility (and covered only the lectern, not the conference table).
A home-brew add-on was based on a consumer handheld digital camera for video. Experiments with different add-on microphones for audio from the lectern and floor were less than successful.
The DIS system however provides an audio out of the lectern an/or floor audio, as well as the capability for the conference administrator to open or mute floor microphones and for the technical administrator to set the maximum number of open microphones, and control their gain.
For the digitization of this system, I used
- an already retired standard university student lab computer
- to which I added an old spare ATI All-in-Wonder video card
- to which I connected a TEVION home TV switch as a poor man’s (~5£) video splitter into which I fed
- the (hitherto unused) DIS audio out balanced stereo, using an RCA adapter, as well as
- the ELMO video, using a coax to RCA adapter (video signal was split into the ATI as well as back into the original SAVILLE Kramer AV switch).
While originally coming with its own digitization software, the ATI All-in-wonder also works well with Windows Media Encoder.
Two wme configuration files were created:
- capturetestaticomposite_pal-l_480x320works.wme(find this file on the computer connected to the central rack, then double-click it in order to start Windows Media Encoder, then click the Record button in the top menu – no custom GUI was deemed necessary for this non-student operated recording) for recording to files that can be played with Windows media player, whether on Windows or on Mac OS X.
- streamtest480x320_15fps_pal.wme (again, simply find this file on the central rack computer, then double-click it) for streaming CCTV live to the back office. An onsite admin office was one of the usual features of a teaching lab which was missing in this installation. CCTV allows to keep an eye on teaching activities in the conference interpreting lab, proactively spot support needs ands absorb feature requirements which instructors tend to have problems articulating (or even seeing the need for articulating). A (lower quality archived stream is created on the side and can be picked up, post-processed and archived at TBA).
Language Learning Center Forms
Here you can download some forms which we use in our business processes.
Lab Assistant/Supervisor Job Application Form
Unless specified otherwise, submit to trplagwitz at Loyola.edu.
Can’t play video?
It is unlikely that you may be missing Adobe-Flash. Not quite so unlikely: MS-Silverlight.
You may simply be missing a codec. Many of my videos use the H.264 codec.
Short of dealing with too many codecs or codec packs, try a better media player:
- VLC player or
- Windows Media Player Classic or
- Windows Media Player 12 (comes with Windows 7)).
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