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How a student uses the Sanako Recorder Voice Insert mode for Moodle comparative recording exercises

2012/01/25 2 comments
  1. to load a file
    1. from Moodle:
      1. Find your assignment with the model audio file, presumably in your Moodle course.
      2. download the model audio file
      3. open the Sanako Student Recorder (introduction).
      4. go to menu: file / open, and open the file you downloaded
    2. from student recorder playlist: double-click the file.
  2. enable voice insert:
    1. To activate voice insert (which is a toggle that changes the behavior of the other buttons)
      1. either go to tools/ voice insert mode
      2. or click the voice insert button sanako-student-player-voice-insert (darker shade of brown = OFF; tooltip should say “Toggle Voice Insert OFF”, meaning: it is ON now)
  3. press the green play button to listen until you reach the point (your teacher may have inserted a pause or aural cue) where you can repeat  or respond.
  4. Then click the red speak-button sanako-student-player-speak to repeat after/respond to the source/teacher
  5. When you are done repeating/responding, press the green play-button.
  6. At the end, press the blue stop-button.
  7. Rewind and review your recording (e.g. compare your pronunciation with the teacher’s model).
  8. When done, click file / save as and save only your, the student track, as mp3 or wma.
  9. Additional notes:
    1. TBA: you can overwrite your pronunciation where you deem necessary.
    2. Fixed in Sanako 7: you cannot show the voice graph when in Voice insert mode – both are incompatible.
    3. To see in action how to record with voice insert and save the student track, view
      1. this step-by-step screencast
      2. this demo screen cast
    4. The previous is just a step-by-step for our environment based on the Sanako Study 1200 documentation which follows here:
    5. sanako-student-player-voice-insert1
    6. sanako-student-player-voice-insert2
Categories: assignments, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-students, multimedia-recording, software, Speaking, step-by-step-guides Tags: , , ,

How a teacher best adds cues and pauses to an mp3-recording with Audacity to create student language exercises

2012/01/25 1 comment
  1. The first screencast example uses insert tones and a gut amount of pause, for an interpreting exercise, into an authentic German political speech
    1. 1:00 search for a break (button: play/stop  – pause prevents edits)
    2. 1:05 move the cursor to the break (mouse left-click on timeline)
    3. 1:20 insert a pause (menu:Generate / Silence )
    4. 1:25 zoom in (button:magnifying glass, CTRL + mouse scroll wheel)
    5. 1:45 generate a tone (menu:Generate / Noise), change the duration
    6. 2:10 do not replace the selection
    7. 2:20 use undo, just like in MS-word and other programs
    8. 2:30 move the cursor to the start of the selection (mouse left-click on timeline)
    9. 2:40 generate a tone (menu:Generate / Noise)
    10. don’t forget to review results before distributing to students
  2. the second screencast example, of post-editing a questions/response exercise in ESL, takes the amount of pause inserted from the recorded teacher instruction for the student, and uses copy/paste to speed things up even more.
  3. You can also only insert tones and not pauses, as in the 3rd screencast, and allow the students flexible pause lengths, if you can rely on the Sanako Student recorder Voice insert. Or if you must, let students use audacity for recording also, and have them learn how to move the recording cursor around manually, and throw away the source track.
Categories: documentation, e-languages, Listening, Media, Screencasts, service-is-learning-materials-creation, Speaking Tags: , ,

How a teacher creates audio recordings for use with Sanako Student Voice Insert mode

2012/01/24 Leave a comment
    1. One of the Sanako Student player’s useful features  geared toward language learning activities, is that it can save the teacher the time and effort for inserting pauses into their audio recordings,  so that students can record responses into them.
      1. Meaning the teacher can just press the red speak button sanako-student-player-speakand record through the entire file in one sitting.
      2. The teacher can still help students finding their way around the file, especially where to insert their own audio recording responses, by adding aural cues.
        1. This can be done in minimal time: I once saw a teacher use a bicycle bell – and why not, if it saves time.
        2. A spoken instruction “Respond”/”Answer in 10 seconds” is not more difficult to spot (unless only the voice graph is being browsed) and might be even better.
        3. If you have spare time: 
          1. You can post-edit the file with audacity, generating and inserting sinus tones.
          2. You can use the Sanako player to insert bookmarks instead of cues.
    2. As long as students have been instructed to how to use voice insert recording mode with the Sanako student recorder.
      1. This is for self access of students to teacher recorded files – be it during class or homework.
      2. If you want to record students under exam conditions, a similar insert recording feature is available within the activity: Model imitation, but not with a pre-recorded file, only when the live teacher is the program source students listen to for cues.
Categories: Arabic, audience-is-teachers, documentation, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Listening, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, presenter-computer, Russian, service-is-learning-materials-creation, software, Spanish, Speaking, Student-Computers, Swahili, Yoruba Tags: , , , ,

How to record your speech with Audacity

2012/01/11 Leave a comment
    1. For a cut-and-dry recording session, the LRC has a simple instruction on
      1. Recording_an_MP3_Audio_File_Using_Audacity_in_the_LRC here.
      2. Uploading an mp3 recording into a Moodle Forum here.
    2. For more advanced editing with Audacity, I have a detailed screencast here.
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, documentation, e-languages, lms, Screencasts, Screenshots, service-is-learning-materials-creation, software Tags: , , ,

How teachers can grade student recordings done with the LRC Sanako Study-1200 in their Office

2011/09/23 Leave a comment
  1. Teacher on their office PC (MAC users talk to http://helpdesk.uncc.edu) can press windows-key+e, and in the window, that opens,
  2. browse to the student mp3 recordings with date and time in the folder name on s:\coas\lcs\labs\lrctest\sanako\student (no S: drive on office PC? talk to http://helpdesk.uncc.edu, but in the meantime, try windows-key+r, paste = \\DATASERV1\DVOL1\coas\lcs\labs\lrctest\sanako\student”, click “OK”),
  3. open the student recording file, either by double-clicking to, presumably, open it in Windows Media Player, or, preferably, by selecting multiple files, right-clicking and choosing “Open with” to open them for comparative grading (read some tips) in Audacity.
Categories: all-languages, assessments, audience-is-teachers, documentation, e-languages, faculty-offices, grading, Institution-is-University-of-North-Carolina-Charlotte, multimedia-recording Tags: , ,

How a Student takes a Moodle Video Assignment in the LRC

2011/09/22 2 comments
  1. On one of the LRC iMacs, in the Safari web browser (open new window with COMMAND-key+n),
  2. go to your Moodle course, (1) find the video Assignment, read the assignment instructions (what your teacher wants  you to record). Then click underneath the  (2) button: “Add video Assignment”, to open the (3) submission window:  moodle-add-video-submission
  3. Note that she will also have to allow the flash player to interact with her webcam first.
  4. kaltura_thumb1 If you see no web cam video window, only a black frame, read in.
  5. In the submission window, choose the tab “Webcam” (1), use the dropdown to select the camera hardware (2). moodle-kaltura-webcam-tab-camera-dropdown
  6. Check the headset microphone audio: The external headset microphone on the iMacs did not work., but now it does, provided you do this: control-click on Flash’s a video preview window (= the window where you see yourself like in a mirror) for the  web camera, and click on “settings”.
    •  
    • Click on the microphone icon :
    • CIMG0021
    • Make sure the USB PnP  device is selected.
    • CIMG0022
    • You can bring up the settings dialogue, make sure the USB PnP device is chosen for audio and CRANK up the microphone input sensitivity! Then, by tabbing (don’t speak yet) on the headset microphone, test the volume levels with the built-in volume meter (should  show lots of green bars when you tab). Unlike in the picture, do not choose “reduce echo ”.

    student-recording-CIMG0015_thumb1

  7. Start (3) the video recording.
  8. Afterwards, the student can review (4) her submission.
  9. If you don’t like your first recording, (3) “record” over it and review again with (4) “Play”. If you do this and the video appears frozen, drag the timeline cursor forward to get the re-recorded video to play. If this does not seem to work, you are likely still able to submit your 2nd attempt, just not review it again.  kaltura-timeline-drag-me1
  10. Click through all the “Next”etc. buttons:
    1.  pauline-moodle-kaltura-next3 pauline-moodle-kaltura-next4CIMG0070CIMG0071
    2. until you get to the feedback page for the student (caveat: in IE9, the video does not fit into the frame provided on the page). student-assignment-result
    3. Note, it warns you to be patient now: kaltura-teacher-upload-student-upload-combineda
  11. LRC support:
    1. Depending on your hardware (webcam), software and network support, you can record your language speaking video assignments on any device that has a webcam and a browser that supports flash – and even more devices, if you are willing to post process and upload the video clip.
    2. If you run into problems or want to use a tested setup, we recommend using the LRC. Since our PCs have no built-in or added webcam (proposed), we can currently only use our 5 8 iMacs (see LRC Layout, see Classroom Calendar and iMacs Calendar for availability). Our (limited) tests worked better in Safari than Firefox.
Categories: Arabic, assessments, audience-is-students, e-languages, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Speaking, step-by-step-guides Tags: , , , ,

How do I make a video out of my PowerPoint Presentation?

2011/09/14 Leave a comment
  1. Many streets may lead to Rome, but here is the "One Microsoft way”, built into PowerPoint 2010: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/turn-your-presentation-into-a-video-HA010336763.aspx: You can essentially “save as”  video, including recorded narrations. You have to have your media inserted in 2010 format. Here is a walk-through:
  2. under “file”, “save&send”, use “create video”powerpoint-save&send-create-video
  3. if you get a compatibility error like so: powerpoint-save&send-create-video-error-media
  4. follow the instructions given; powerpoint-save&send-create-video-error-media-convert
  5. watch the progress bar: powerpoint-save&send-create-progress
  6. Takes over 60 minutes with on average over 50% CPU of an Intel i5 with 8 GB Ram, to produce a 75MB file of 920*760 and less than 18 minutes in length. But this video streams from MS-SkyDrive.
Categories: audience-is-teachers, documentation, e-infrastructure, learning-materials Tags: , , , , ,

Successful test of the new streaming video recording assignment for language proficiency assessment in Moodle.

2011/07/20 1 comment
  1. Video recordings allow for a more authentic assessment of spoken language proficiency. Today, we could test a new Moodle video assignment type for Almut’s Summer II Elementary German II class: Preparing a natural sounding statement on one’s favorite holiday. This Moodle assignment type is an extension to students of the teacher video upload tool using a service Kaltura – we hinted at that earlier.
  2. Teachers, when editing their Moodle course,  can find this assignment type in the dropdown: Activity as “Video”. dropwdown-activity
  3. The assignment options: Note that creating a video assignment is pretty much the same as creating other assignments in Moodle, and so is grading, except instead of reading, you view the submission, right within the web page.  kaltura-assignment-options
  4. An example of guiding questions for a recording assignment is here (topic: holiday, language: German): moodle-video-assignment-guiding-questions
  5. Here is how the teacher sees the student submission in the gradebook.
  6. kaltura (1)
  7. teacher-grading-roster-CIMG0021
  8. Caveat: in Safari, we were not able to close the video popup, after viewing it from the class roster, and could only back out of the entire gradebook. Instead, from the roster, first open the page with the individual student submission, and review the video there on that page:
  9. teacher-grading-CIMG0027
  10. For the student experience, see here.
  11. Further reading: The CTL has a number of step-by-step instructions which we recommend for further reading: Student Video Assignment, and specifically for students: Upload a Video for a Video Assignment; for instructors: Grading Video Assignment Submissions.
  12. The LRC had originally prepared to record the students with our old, handheld mini-DV cameras, import the movie into iMovie or Windows Movie Maker, then find a way to get the files (with easily identifiable submitter names) to the teachers. Hitherto, our best option was compression of the video to to fit into the Moodle 64MB file upload size limit  (which, even if you decide to shoot and produce your video elsewhere and bring it as an uploadable  file to the assignment , does not apply to the Video assignment either).
  13. Preliminary testing seems to indicate that video recording of pairs/dialogues is also possible with the LRC’s webcam setup . However, because of the angle restrictions, capturing such sessions will be less natural.
  14. Overall, the new Moodle video assignment seems a major improvement for  all parties – students, teachers and support –, and can help with more authentic assessment of
Categories: Arabic, assessments, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, English, Farsi, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Speaking Tags: , , , , , ,