Archive
Sanako Study-1200 Oral Exams: More result examples
- Study 1200 will automatically save the exam recordings of each of your students under a distinct name (you can choose student email name or seat number) in a location which you can access from your office desktop:
- You can load this recordings in Audacity to grade them, including skipping past the questions and increasing the play speed, but not the pitch, and easy comparison of students like in the picture below:
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How to do Sanako Oral Exams with large classes, but few licenses: A workaround using partial classroom layouts
When you open the Study1200 tutor, a dialogue comes up which lets you select you the “classroom layout’. What this actually means – since the physical classroom (LRC layout) is obviously immutable –, is: which computers do you want the Study1200 to connect.
The “template classroom” (this happens to be just the default name within Sanako) tries to connect all students logged in on computer in COED434 to the teacher from the “corridor” (= where Study1200 leaves all computers that it knows of, but that you do “into” want to let into the classroom; the corridor has link in the bottom center of the Study1200 teacher window, and it flashes if there is a change “in “ the corridor Stuy1200 wants to make you aware of) that the Study1200.
However, beyond the 20th client (first come, first serve), this will fail because of licensing restrictions, and a grey exclamation mark will appear in the classroom layout in the Study1200 window for these student icons.
The “left-half”and “right-half” layouts that I created load only the computers in either the left or right half of the COED434 classroom (each without the wall/window-facing computers at the very edges) into the classroom layout (other logged-in students will remain in the “corridor”, linked in the bottom center of the tutor interface, if you want to add select students – note that the student icon will not appear on screen in their approximate physical position in the classroom.
You can also bring up the dialogue from which you can choose classroom layout after the initial startup of the tutor: Go to top menu: file / classroom layout. A 45-second screencast of this switching our classroom layouts in Sanako Study 1200 is available for download (requires Windows Media player).
In the screencast, you can see how the visual layout on screen reflects the physical layout in the classroom (the number labels on top of our computer monitors appear (optionally) in seat numbers): rotate by 90% clock- or counterclockwise (I wish we would have not only more licenses, but also a higher screen resolution. Stay tuned).
This technique of splitting the classroom, unloading and loading half of it at a time, you can exploit for administering oral exams consecutively with class sizes (current maximum is 25/30, depending on level) that exceed the number of licenses we have (currently 20 + teacher).
This technique of excluding computers from connecting to the teacher we could also use to merge the listening station computers, even though they have a different audio hardware configuration (analog headsets only, no Sanako headsets with built-in sound card and disabled on board sound) into the main software image without consuming valuable licenses – not without other problems.
How to conduct an easy oral exam with Sanako Study-1200 (Model imitation/Question Response) – Part I: The exam administrator’s perspective
This 7-minute screencast explains how to operate the Study-1200 software interface to administer an oral exam, using as audio source the teacher, providing cues live:
- 0:00: from selecting the activity and program source,
- 1:50: over start and use of the autoscan screen control feature to monitor both audio and screen of the examined students
- 3:45: to ending the exam and automatic collection of the exam files.
For an implementation during an actual class-wide oral exam, see Part II of the Study-1200 oral exam.
Protected: How to conduct an easy oral exam with Sanako1200 (Model imitation/Question Response) – Part II: Implementation/instruction of examined students
Sanako Lab300 Oral-exam-question-response-recording-cycle
A 6-minute screen-cast explaining the sanako-lab300-oral-exam-question-response-recording-cycle.wmv
Please consult the transcript for a table of contents:
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0,00 |
Here we are administering an oral exam. we are going to play pre-recorded teacher-questions to multiple students, we are going to record their responses and, at the end, we are going to collect their recordings in a batch: |
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0,12 |
for this, we have all seats where a student is present added to group a, and have set the program source for group a to media file |
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0,22 |
we monitor the situation on the student computers by accessing menu: other / thumbnail of group, |
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the screen sharing is slow here, has been improved somewhat by installing more memory, the crowded screen situation has also been improved by installing a secondary monitor, use it for viewing the thumbnail window |
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0,59 |
in the group a pane, we use the button: duo launch, and ok the dialogue, to open th estudent recorder on the student computers |
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1,07 |
in the section:media source, button: file open, we access our pre-recorded question file |
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1,13 |
in the meantime, the duo has launched on the student computers – as you can see in the classroom layout from the squares on the student seats, as well as on the mosaic thumbnail screens |
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1,35 |
we double-click on a single thumbnail to demo to the students on the screen projector how to adjust the volume |
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1,43 |
we click button:transfer to play the volume test file to the students |
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we have the students record their name at the end of the sound test, to check all recorders, and to be able to identify the speaker in the actual exam file (which will be saved with only the student number in lab 300) |
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we stop the button:transfer and go to menu:test:response recording |
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in the pane:”response recording”, in section:”collect”, we click button:”start” |
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we save the recording in a subdirectory with a meaningful name of our choice |
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we ok the dialogue that informs us of the response recording |
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in the window:mosaic, the encoding activity window briefly flashes on the student screens |
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we browse to the student collect folder, where all subdirectories are saved |
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we check the folder visibly for the right number (use select all), size or duration of audio files – |
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it would be even safer, even though more time consuming, to open all the test recordings with audacity, especially on a slow computer, and check the volume graph – open audacity and drag and drop all files onto it |
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4,07 |
the soundtest is a complete recording cycle. Simply repeat for the actual exam, but |
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first close the pane:response recording, to go back to your pane:group, |
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in section:program transfer, click button:group control, click icon:file/new, to flush the prior test out of the student recorders, |
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in the dialogue:”save changes”, click no |
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and this time load the actual exam audio file |
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once the sound check is done, we could use button:lock for the students to prevent them from interfering with the computers during the exam |
B-languages for Relay interpreting in European Parliament Plenary Video (2009)
You can do relay interpreting from European parliament plenary videos by selecting one of the b-languages which the parliament interpreters provide.
The (3) video download control for videos older than 20080711 allows for the recording of only one language-track in the video. You can download, from a link emailed to you, either the a- (e.g. (1) Italian here) or one b-language (e.g. (2) German here), as you can see below:
Given that software tends to always get impoved, is is rather surprising that one does not seem to have a similar choice in the new video downloader – however, the improvement is just a bit hidden.
For Videos newer than 20080710, all language-tracks are automatically contained within the downloaded (how? see here) video file. To switch between a- and b-language or between b-languages, in Windows Media Player, go to menu (if the menu does not show, right-click left from the “Now playing”button””: file / play / audio and language tracks / [now choose your language].
E.g. if you do not want to listen to Ferrero-Waldner not speaking her native tongue, choose like pictured below:
And she does not really speak “Zulu” which seems to have been chosen by the European Parliament technicians as the designator of the original a-language, there being no such concept in windows media player. Çan’t have it all. Pretty close, though.
Passing around European Parliament Plenary Video Clips & Transcripts
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European parliament video clips are quite big and it would be easier not to have to pass them around. But how to communicate to somebody else which video clip to watch if the clip selected is not reflected in the browser address bar? The flash application unfortunately forces you to provide the “bibliographic” information in pieces (start url, date, possibly video format, debate title, speaker name). But in the end you get a direct link which you can pass on to save others from having to jump through the same hoops: If you just need the direct link, skip to step 7. Otherwise: Start with the calendar interface: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/wps-europarl-internet/frd/vod/research-by-date?language=en, find your (1) date, e.g. “Wednesday 14 January 2009”,
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The window with the recording of that date will come up; now you CAN (2) change the video format – wmv (should work on most Windows PCs, free upgrade for MACs here:http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx) or mp4 -, an option that will show in the browser address bar. If you must, change format this first, as it seems to rewind the video to the beginning of the session.
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Click on your (3) debate, e.g. “Situation in the Middle East/Gaza Strip (debate) 14-01-2009”.
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Click on your (4) speaker, e.g. “ 15:16:50 Benita Ferrero-Waldner 00:13:12 15:30:02”
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Instead of watching online (e.g. if you find the stream quality lacking), you can (5) download the video (in the format you have chosen, either wmv or mp4). UPDATE: The web site added a disclaimer that you have to 1.read, 2.check before you can 3. download, as illustrated below:
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Note: you can (6) change the b-language (for relay interpreting) when streaming. Plus, when you download the video, all the b-languages are downloaded together with the a-language. See here how to select the desired b-language when playing the downloaded file.
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Easier than providing all bibliographical information (calendar URL, date, debate and speaker) is the direct URL of the download clip. Right click on “Download this Speech”, select (7) “Copy shortcut” from the context menu. Then paste this, e.g. http://vod.europarl.europa.eu/nasvod01/vod0301/2009/wm/VODUnit_20090114_15165000_15300200.wmv or if you chose mp4 format: http://vod.europarl.europa.eu/nasvod02/vod0301/2009/isma/VODUnit_20090114_15165000_15300200.mp4, into the calendar event for the exam – completes your checklist for the exam, and at the beginning of the exam, you can download the link from here onto the students’ computer. Or, for assigning materials to students or passing them to external examiners, email this direct link.
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Unfortunately, it appears that the transcripts, unlike the audio channels, do not include the relay languages and have to be accessed from a different (calendar-)interface here: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/activities/plenary/cre/calendar.do?language=EN: “The verbatim report of proceedings of each sitting (often referred to by its French abbreviation, CRE) is published (Rule 173 of the Rules of Procedure) and contains the speeches made in plenary, in the original language.”
Appendix: The file size of these videos is about 10MB per minute. If you feel you need to save the videos locally, use an appropriate location (where you have sufficient space, the file will not be erased, only appropriate users have access – consider this before using a public network share, personal drive). Not really more “local” is saving the video clip on the http://hale-interpreting.groups.live.com Skydrive which can also hold clips larger than 50MB[ doubled to 100MB on June 20,2011] if you pre-process them like described in the zipping instruction.
Watch a 5-minute narrated video-clip that demonstrates the above steps.
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