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Posts Tagged ‘MS-Word’

Protected: How to convert Friendly Russian web pages for better use with the Sanako Study 1200

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Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, digital-audio-lab, e-languages, Institution-is-University-of-North-Carolina-Charlotte, learning-materials, Russian Tags: ,

Example 7: Exercise dictating in German to an LRC Windows 7 computer

2012/07/17 Leave a comment

How can we get language students more speaking practice with qualified, but affordable feedback ? Native speaker contact remains difficult to organize even in the days of online conferencing. The LRC hosts language tutoring, but numbers are limited. Enter speech recognition, the holy grail of iCALL,  much easier for learners to relate to than the voice graph that digital audio can be broken down to, and thus for a long time a standout feature of costly second-language-acquisition packages like Auralog Tell-me-More (speech recognition in English tested here) – but now the LRC has Windows 7 Enterprise (and its free add-on language packs), and another crucial prerequisite: headphones with excellent microphones.

We are setting up the new Windows 7 computers in the LRC to allow for speech recognition in Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish. Here is an example of me using this facility for a practicing my German during a dictation exercise:

Granted, German is my native tongue; but the example text is from the online component for the final chapter  of the “Treffpunkt Deutsch” 1st-year textbook in use here, which sends the readers to the website of the Swiss (-German) employment agency.

Apart from infrequent words ("Archiven") and Lehnwörtern ("Bachelor" etc.), Windows 7 speech recognition accuracy seems quite impressive. The above example was actually my first dictation, except that immediately beforehand, I invested a few minutes into the standard Windows 7 speech recognition training (aimed at training the user, although may behind the scenes teach the computer a few things about the speaker already also) and a few more minutes of voice training (this one is meant exclusively for the computer, but the user can also see it fail and why). The – rather simple trick to boost speech recognition results – certainly accessible to our students – seems to be to speak not only  clearly, but also slowly, with short pauses between most words.

Speech recognition in these languages is a feature of the Windows 7 (Enterprise/Ultimate version) “language packs” that we installed and switched to – that is why the entire computer interface appears in German. Practicing the L2 with (computer—operating) “voice commands” (instead of with a mouse) is also possible, simpler than replacing the keyboard (mostly) by voice, but not as easy to devise homework exercises for.

Tips for designing exercises using speech recognition: As the example shows ("Archiven") , doing all corrections by voice can quickly become tedious. But there is no pedagogical need to have your students’ bang their heads against this wall. Instead, just ask your students to correct their automatically recognized words manually at the end of their video, after their dictation. This way both you and your students get a clear summary of what they achieved – even clearer if they dictate in MS-Word with the spell and grammar check for the language (automatic with the switch to the language pack for the language) and (using key combination CTRL+SHIFT+E) track changes. We will show you later TBA:how we now enable students to easily record their screen and TBA:upload their screencast into Moodle Kaltura.

Categories: audience-is-teachers, e-languages, English, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Operating-system, Presenter-Computer, Screencasts, service-is-applying-learning-tools, service-is-configuring-learning-tools, service-is-documenting, service-is-evaluating-learning-tools, service-is-learning-materials-creation, Spanish, Speaking, Student-Computers Tags: , , ,

How a teacher creates a Moodle file upload assignment for writing

2012/01/30 1 comment
  1. In your Moodle course, turn editing on, choose Assignment: Advanced upload of files (required for response file from teacher). 
  2. Provide name and instructions. Choose the desired options (uploading one file is enough):w-2
  3. A gradebook column will be automatically created, and will be initially empty.w0c-gb-whole
  4. Instruct your students how to take the MS-Word upload assignment, and when (if you leave the default availability/due date on, the assignment will automatically appear in their Moodle Calendar, and can appear in their Ninermail calendar).
Categories: audience-is-teachers, documentation, lms, service-is-learning-materials-creation, Writing Tags: , ,

Problem with Endnote and Word 2010 on Teacher computer

2012/01/27 Leave a comment
  1. errors abound when opening word:
  2. endnote-template-error
  3. word-endnote
  4. endnote-com-addin-disabling-by-admin
  5. workaround: disable endnot Add-inendnote-template-disable
  6. more errors when having recovered documents in the document template.
  7. Workaround: start MS-word in safe mode, clean the document recovery template.
Categories: e-infrastructure, Glitches&Errors, Presenter-Computer, presenter-computer Tags: ,

How to do reviewing for collaboration, including corrective feedback, in MS-Word

2012/01/21 Leave a comment
  1. Home-brew: MS-Word reviewing screencast: This 3-minute software video contains all you need to get started with using "track changes" in MS-Word 2003 for more efficient collaborative document authoring:
    1. How to turn "track changes"  on/off and what the effect is,
    2. How to use the reviewing toolbar (to select which type of changes to show (and not to show) and to cycle through changes, accepting/rejecting them one by one or all at once),
    3. How to make sure to print/not print tracked changes (and comments)
  2. Microsoft-made: http://office.microsoft.com/home/video.aspx?assetid=ES102520891033&width=884&height=540&startindex=0&CTT=11&Origin=HA102520671033
    1. For Word2007, but all the buttons explained here are also on menu:view / toolbar / reviewing in Word 2003
    2. Note especially the section 4:11-5:30 about how to avoid embarrassment by permanently removing tracked changes before publishing a document
Categories: audience-is-teachers Tags: , , ,

How to do writing assignments in Moodle with deadlines, file and response file upload and MS-Word tracked changes

2012/01/20 Leave a comment
  1. Benefits
    1. Keep the cohort in shape and focus it on studying by enforcing deadlines.
    2. You can have students automatically receive reminders of the upcoming deadlines from their calendar (in NINERMAIL, no need to even look at the Moodle Calendar)
    3. You can save time managing the assignment.
      1. Moodle does it for you; you will save even more time once you begin recycling your assignment across terms) and rather provide more timely feedback, and improve changes that your feedback arrives during a teachable moment.
      2. Automatic email notifications,  which are available in Moodle for teachers (if you do not prefer to grade student submissions in a batch) and students to (automatic correction and grading is not ready for prime-time when it comes to essay writing; you may however consider teaching some more basic writing skills using it with close-exercises in Moodle).
    4. Costs
      1. You need to TBA:create a Moodle file upload assignment for writing (once)
      2. You need to grade a Moodle file upload assignment for writing (any time you assign; depending on your preference as submissions arrive or conveniently as a batch from the gradebook past the deadline)
        1. I prefer the MS-Word reviewing features for grading writing assignments,
        2. but other tools have other affordances, e.g. like recently described here for Adobe Acrobat Professional.
      3. Moodle does not automatically add unique usernames to student submitted files like Blackboard. It also does not afford the TBA:convenience of a shared network storage that the WebDAV-based Blackboard Content system provides. However, as long as you do not need to maintain a local archive of student submissions, you can rely on the Moodle gradebook managing the archive of assignment files (student submissions and teacher response files).
      4. How? These 4 posts guide you through the entire workflow from teacher to student back to  teacher to student:
        1. How a teacher creates a Moodle file upload assignment for writing
        2. How a student takes a Moodle file upload assignment for writing
        3. How a teacher grades a Moodle file upload assignment for writing
        4. How a student reviews a Moodle file upload assignment for writing
Categories: assignments, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, lms, office-software, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

How a student reviews a Moodle MS-Word file upload assignment for writing

2012/01/18 1 comment
  1. The student can see the submitted grade in her user report:qw6-view-grading-as-permitted-student
  2. She can view the assignment: corrected-assignment-with-response-file-as-permitted-student
  3. from where she can open the corrected MS-word file w7-open-file-as-permitted-student
  4. for more detailed corrective feedback: w2
  5.  
Categories: Arabic, audience-is-students, documentation, e-languages, English, Farsi, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Writing, Yoruba Tags: , ,

How a teacher grades a Moodle MS-Word file upload assignment for writing

2012/01/18 1 comment
  1. Where students have submitted MS-Word files in the Gradebook, click (1) button “Grade”: writing-gradebook
  2. This opens the (2) Feedback window, with the (3) student MS-Word submission: gradebook2feedback
  3. Download the student MS-Word submission by clicking on the link: w0e-open-word-teacher
  4. open with MS-Word:  w0f-open-word-teacher
  5. Correct with track changes turned on (CTRL+SHIFT+E), and save: w0f-save-word-teacher
  6. YOU WILL SAVE under a different filename (suggest adding “_corrected”at the end) INTO YOUR DEFAULT TEMP DIRECTORY, here is a shortcut to get to it: key-combination WIN+R, %temp%, “ “OK”:w0g-upload-temp
  7. Back in Moodle, select your response file from the temporary directory: w0h-teacher-response-upload
  8. Provide (1) Grade and (2) comment, then (3) upload the file: w0h-upload2
  9. Done, you can move to “ Next” w0i
  10. Which is where you are here: now repeat as above (provided student has submitted his file already) w0h-upload4-next
  11. Or view the gradebook, where your results are visible,w0j-gb-last-modified1
  12. including to the student.
  13. Instead of using the Moodle Response File feature, can I just make my corrections in MS-Word and copy/paste the resulting track changes markup into the Moodle Feedback Window Comment textbox? I would not try this. This way, you are not giving the students the full functionality of the track changes feature in MS-Word  for them to continue working with the file. Moreover, whether the basic coloring of track MS-Word’s changes  get preserved, will likely depend on how the web browser that you (and possibly the student later) uses supports the rich edit control of the comment textbox. If you just want to preserve the colors, I would instead try and Save as PDf from MS-Word 2007 and up, and send the PDF as a Response File.
Categories: all-languages, audience-is-teachers, lms, Writing Tags: , ,