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Posts Tagged ‘sanako-study-1200’

Sanako recorder still requiring configuration from student on every log in?

2014/01/08 Leave a comment

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Categories: digital-audio-lab, e-infrastructure, Glitches&Errors, Institution-is-University-of-North-Carolina-Charlotte Tags: ,

Sanakoaudioconfigonthefly software utilities updated for Vista/Windows7

2013/12/09 Leave a comment
  1. (Shortcut to download – now fixed) The reason why a colleague’s signature reads: “Worrying about a large institution, especially when it has computers, is like worrying about a large gorilla, especially when it’s on fire" (Bruce Sterling) might just be that a multimedia-capable fully computerized classroom – think 30 PCs and 30 students trying not only to listen to, but record responses to exam audio – is a notoriously difficult beast to control, and all too easily spins out of the same (a classroom humming in an endless audio feedback loop is neither a pleasant nor an unfamiliar sight).
  2. The Sanako Study 1200 is a digital audio lab software that facilitates the use of personal computers in face-to-face class settings. However, while the Sanako Study 1200 features many ways for the teacher to control and manage the student PCs, the students’ audio settings cannot be controlled on the fly.
  3. Enter these little sanakoaudioconfigonthefly utilities (written in AutoIt) for Windows 7 and Vista  (old Windows PX version still available here) that extend the Sanako Study 1200.
  4. We now use  (as it is completely adequate and actually superior to to the seemingly more applicable PC control / Launch programs features which is requires the program executable to reside under the same path on student and tutor computer) Playlist / copy and launch (folder icon) and the Sanako grouping feature to send a program with your choice of action to the student PCs  of your choice. In this example,
    1. click playlist, 01
    2. and in the window that opens, click (1) to send to “all”, then click (2) to select which program to send: image_thumb[3]
  5. Files included in this release (each for 64-bit, and as source code, so that you can compile your own if you are still on MS-Vista/MS-Windows-732-bit platform):
    1. Change student recording levels (microphone sensitivity).
    2. Toggle student sidetone ( in Sanako = “listen” to this device in Windows)
    3. Control student playback level (headphone volume).
  6. Likely these programs can be adapted beyond Sanako Study 1200, but I do not remember (helpful comments appreciated)
    1. whether other digital audio lab platforms (Sony Virtuoso, Robotel SmartClass) allow for changing the student audio config on the fly
    2. and what mechanism (if any – but likely) they (and Sanako Lab300) provide to launch programs on the students’ computers
  8. Prerequisites:
    1. None other than your digital audio lab software and the utilities you can download below. In particular, it is not required to install AutoIt on teacher or student computers.
    2. However, there should be only 1 microphone/speaker per student computer in the digital audio lab. If you have more, you likely have bigger problems to solve first, but you also need to alter the source code (included) to select the microphone you want to work with (should be easy; note however, that I have not tested this scenario, for: “There should be only 1 microphone/speaker per student computer in the digital audio lab” Smile
  9. Request here to download these utilities.
    Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, digital-audio-lab, multimedia-recording, service-is-configuring-learning-tools, service-is-programming Tags: , , , , , , , ,

    Request to download the digital audio lab classroom audio configuration on the fly, program and source for Windows 7

    2013/12/09 Leave a comment

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    Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, compiledcode, digital-audio-lab, e-infrastructure, forms, service-is-programming, sourcecode Tags: , , , , ,

    Testing and semi-automatically changing the Sanako student audio configuration

    2013/12/09 Leave a comment
    1. Problem
      1. We have had teacher complaints about too much background noise from neighboring students being recorded in our Sanako Study 1200, with SLH-07 headsets.
      2. In addition, upon looking through some recordings as samples for a workshop, I found cases of clipping audio, especially in pair recordings.
      3. We are using the default settings for the Sanako SLH-07 headset. However, the default recording level (67) seems high.
    2. Solution approach
      1. We need to test
        1. many other settings quickly for these recording levels. We use my sanakoaudioconfigonthefly utility for this
        2. in an acoustically realistic environment: 5 Lab assistants  site in tight lab area and read out sample English text during a Sanako reading activity
          1. Reading practice
          2. Todo: Pairing
      2. Here is a “window” into the recorded results set, a student’s audio recording shown in Audacity at various (but all lowered) recording levels from (visible) 30 to 5, you can see the diminishing waveform amplitude. image
      1. The waveform per se is not conclusive. You will have to listen in and compare, especially to evaluate background noise (the original complaint – we have no and will not be able to go back to language lab carrels). The Sanako SLH-07 headset microphones are supposed to be highly directional. However, our students to not always wear the headsets properly. And our acoustics is marred by large (almost 50%) window spaces and a tight positioning of the student seats.
      2. Any test recording is only as good as it can mimic the acoustics during an actual class session which we did as much as we could with only 6 concurrent LRC staff. This means  unfortunately some more testing will have to spill into actual classes, but this test is a start.
    Categories: digital-audio-lab, e-languages, headphones, multimedia-recording, service-is-configuring-learning-tools Tags: , , , , ,

    How teachers can collect any file from students’ computers with Sanako Study 1200 homework–the ultimate training…

    2013/11/22 Leave a comment

    …using animated .gifs. Different speed? 0.25sec,0.5sec, 0.75sec, 1sec, , 1.5sec, 2sec, 3sec, 4sec, 5sec, 6sec, 7sec, 8sec, 9sec, 10sec. 1.5sec

    Categories: animated-GIFs, audience-is-teachers, digital-audio-lab, e-learning, training Tags: ,

    Faculty Workshop Fall 2013: Creating Mahara language learner portfolio pieces in the digital audio lab

    2013/11/18 Leave a comment
      1. Thanks to all who came out to this workshop.
        1. You have already been emailed your portfolio pieces, like your students will be, by the LangLabEmailer.
        2. Converting your recordings to a file for Question/Response exams will take a little longer, let me know if/when you would like to use it.
      2. In addition, here are the workshop files:
        1. my slide handout as PDF with clickable links (includes “Can do”- Statements aligned with the Common European Reference Framework for language proficiency levels, which can help operationalizing your ePortfolio strategy)
        2. my slide deck embedded:
        3. my slide deck as a downloadable PowerPoint show: you can click through the animations at your own speed, view the animated GIFs, and listen (or jump over!) to my full presentation narration (both as of yet not supported in PowerPoint Web App)
        4. a screencast of the back stage view (Sanako tutor mostly), full HD resolution (big, but streaming), with complete uninterrupted (and unedited! please fast forward manually through the hands-on parts) audio . To facilitate your navigation, here is a table of contents :
          1. 0:00: Table of contents
          2. 2:30: Portfolio Pedagogy
          3. 13:47: Technical infrastructure: Moodle Mahara portfolio, Sanako, LangLabEmailer
            1. 17:47: Q&A
          4. 19:45: Option 1: presentation as screencast, examples from 1st-year Russian
          5. 34:50: Option 2: Free-form conversation audio, Examples from 2nd-year English  and 2nd-year Japanese
            1. 52:00: Q&A: Why a LangLabEmailer?
          6. 53:00: Option 3: question-response audio, examples from 4th-year Spanish.
    Categories: announcements, audience-is-teachers, digital-audio-lab, eportfolio, Institution-is-University-of-North-Carolina-Charlotte, learning-usage-samples, multimedia-recording, Slideshows, Speaking, workshops Tags: , ,

    How to control students’ access to internet and local apps with Sanako Study 1200

    2013/11/18 Leave a comment

    imageimage

    Straight from the documentation, straight under your fingertips in the tutor interface, and most useful during assessments, but also for individual students that won’t stay on task.

    Categories: assessments, audience-is-teachers, digital-audio-lab, e-learning Tags: , ,

    Exam integrity considerations during mock and proctored written exams in the LRC

    2013/11/17 Leave a comment

    The easiest way to hold a mock or proctor a written exam in the LRC is provide the students a printout of the exam. For larger classes preparing, and under some circumstances (writing impediment due to injury), providing the MS-Word file on a computer to the student would seem a more convenient solution.

    However, the LRC prides itself in the large collection of MS-Office proofing tools it has installed and preconfigured – accessing which from within MS-Word could be construed as cheating during a writing exam. As a matter of fact, since MS-Word auto-detects language, under-waving of misspelled words and incorrect Grammar provides unsolicited and unavoidable extra help.

    MS-Office proofing tools could be turned off by using a special MS-word template as the basis for the exam. Easier and quicker is using the SANAKO which can not only block internet access of the examined students, but also block use of entire applications like MS-Word.

    Instead of in MS-Word, your students could write their responses in an application that is not part of the proofing tools infrastructure, like Notepad. Western language diacritics can easily be written  in any application on LRC PCs thanks to US-International keyboard layout, and non-Western characters even easier than on paper.

    For full security, the best environment for exams we can offer remains Respondus lockdown browser, integrated with Moodle, but this requires converting the exam to into a Moodle quiz (which Respondus has tools to facilitate).  In certain cases, it might be easiest to create a “dummy” quiz with one long text input field, which your students could type everything in, without having access to any other resources (internet, proofing tools, chat, what not…). However, this quiz still would have to be  in your Moodle course so that your students can access access, and their results get put into your gradebook.

    Outside of Moodle – if you do not want to go down the Respondus-path – , you can rely on the SANAKO homework collection feature and my langlabemailer to receive the results.

    Categories: audience-is-teachers, English, French, lms, office-software, Writing Tags: , , , , , ,