Digitizing audio tapes in 2012…

2012/09/26 Leave a comment

20120925_15062020120925_152710

…comes now at least with “China  price”. e-learning is not about digitizing, but in tape, you can get entangled. : –)

Categories: service-is-learning-materials-creation Tags:

No audio on listening stations and group rooms, and workaround

2012/09/26 Leave a comment
  1. Symptom: Headsets work (test feedback by putting microphone near headset speakers), but audio files from internet do not play with sound. 
  2. Cause: having to support 2 different kinds of headsets (USB with built-in soundcard versus traditional analog) in one PC software image.
  3. The workaround
    1. for temp staff is to start / run / sndvol32.exe and up the low volume sliders here: 20120912_153937
    2. for permanent staff is to unfreeze any computers that have been missed previously20120912_154121 and put this script into the all users startup folder now: 20120912_154205
  4. The solution: standardize on USB headsets when you get a chance.
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, e-infrastructure, Institution-is-University-of-North-Carolina-Charlotte, Listening-Stations, service-is-it-managing, service-is-testing-troubleshooting-debugging, small-group-work-spaces Tags: ,

How to link your LRC tutor calendar and Moodle metacourse from your Moodle course

2012/09/26 Leave a comment

Click on image to view screencast:

Categories: audience-is-teachers, e-infrastructure, Institution-is-University-of-North-Carolina-Charlotte, lms, Screencasts, service-is-library, service-is-tutoring, training Tags: , , ,

Saba centra ie listening station crash

2012/09/26 Leave a comment

Categories: Distance-education-format-is-Synchronous, Glitches&Errors

Centra crash ie listening stations

2012/09/26 Leave a comment

Try firefox also. The plugin should be preinstalled on all pc’s.

Categories: Glitches&Errors, mental-notes

Animated GIFs workflow using MS-OneNote, MS-Paint, Irfanview and UnFREEZ

2012/09/25 Leave a comment
  1. To keep things simple (and, at least in our work environment, free) during smaller Animated GIF projects (larger projects may warrant use of ImageMagick, scriptable image editor), you can use
    1. MS-OneNote screen clipping (configured right, it seems the fastest way to collect source material)
    2. Update: I recommend now screenshotcaptor instead, if you do screenshot projects more than  occasionally.  MS-Paint (or pretty much any image editor) to mark up your images
    3. IrfanView to batch convert to GIF: image image image
    4. UnFreez to easily create animated GIFs in differing speeds: imageimage, which can be automated.
Categories: animated-GIFs, Notes, Screenshots, service-is-documenting, service-is-evaluating-learning-tools, service-is-learning-materials-creation, service-is-training Tags: , , ,

Oral assessments with Sanako model imitation – The ultimate training summary…

2012/09/25 Leave a comment

…using animated GIFs. Load the speed of your choosing (or several, use CTRL-Click to open links in a new tab) into the left screen of the teacher station before administering an oral exam, with the window active, press F5 in your web browser to restart the animation from the beginning. Slower? Expanded:050cs, 075cs, 100cs, 150cs, 200cs, 300cs, 400cs, 500cs, 1000cs.Or compact for recapitulation: 025cs, 050cs, 075cs, 100cs, 150cs, 200cs, 300cs, 400cs, 500cs, 600cs, 700cs, 800cs, 900cs, 1000cs.

Categories: animated-GIFs, assessments, audience-is-teachers, digital-audio-lab, Presenter-Computer, Screenshots, training Tags: , ,

How to use archive.org’s US-English news collection as a language learning corpus with QUIK-like speaking samples

2012/09/25 Leave a comment
  1. Much of TV news nowadays seems to amount to not much more than a constant stream of sound bites  – however, exactly this brevity,
  2. the large archive and simple search interface: image
  3. the research/browsing capabilities visible on the left here, including the varied sources – of which Arabic and French and other European TV likely provide a somewhat different perspectives on Edward Snowden –
  4. image
  5. and the caption-like transcription, make it all the more accessible for intermediate learners of English.
  6. image
  7. video clips of only 30 seconds length is hardly enough for instruction, however, you can have students work with corpus-QUIK-like spoken samples, and have them string a news history together if you design webquest-like research assignments – with the major added benefits, that this corpus is spoken and trains listening.
  8. For more background info on archive.org’s transcribed TV news, consult this NYTimes article.
Categories: Corpus-linguistics, e-languages, English, learning-materials, Listening, websites Tags: , , ,