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Posts Tagged ‘track-changes’

Example 5: Watch how you can dictate to Windows speech-recognition (e.g. in English) and correct results in MS-Word

2014/03/07 Leave a comment

  1. Important: Listen carefully: I am not a native speaker, but have a reasonably low amount of errors, because it enunciate, speak clearly and slowly, and separate the words.
  2. Consider it part of the exercise that you will have to re-read and re-type some your output – use track changes in MS-Word:
    1. Make it a game: How good can you get?
    2. If you get really good at it, make a screencast like this one and include it in your Mahara ePortfolio  as authentic evidence of your foreign language proficiency.
  3. Overall, it’s like how I refer to cycling: Beats walking. Anytime. Smiley
Categories: assignments, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, e-languages, English, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Mandarin, multimedia-recording, Operating-system, Reading, Screencasts, service-is-applying-learning-tools, Spanish, Speaking, Student-Computers, training, Writing Tags: , , ,

How to compare two MS-Word documents for plagiarism detection

2013/11/14 2 comments
  1. You could start with the document properties
    1. some  students leave even the author and editing time in. However, author does not prove any wrong doing, a student may have borrowed a laptop, including its MS-word installation, to author a document and submit it
    2. It may  actually be more of an indicator of something illicit if document properties are empty.
    3. Students have likely used the “Document inspector”:
      1. (1): File / (2) Info, (3) view the properties (this document looks like it had its privacy information removed), you can use (4) to view even more. image
      2. to remove all privacy relevant information, like so: (5) unfold “check for issues”, (6) “inspect document””,
      3. in the window: “document inspector”, click image, you will be given the option to “remove all”personal information: image
    4. However, removing personal information can be perfectly legitimate, unless something else was assigned. And it does not help plagiarizers cover their tracks anyway, for…
  2. …there is the more substantial “compare” documents feature which (even though it was developed for the legal profession, as blackline) tracks what really counts: content changes.
    1. Access it form the ribbon’s “review” tab: image
    2. point the tool to your 2 documents: image
    3. make your life easier by selecting on the “review” tab to view only content changes  (formatting comparisons is noise for plagiarism detection): image
    4. You get a handy (here blurred, but still demonstrating the amount of similarity (=black), compared with changes (= blue),  between the 2 documents ) overview of (from the left)
      1. list of changes
      2. view of changes in a merged document (which you can save)
      3. original document
      4. secondary (likely plagiarized) document: compare documents-blurred
      5. The feature is nice, but only moderately intelligent (see the first match, I would obviously not count that as substantially different) and best used with discretion, to make it easier for a teacher to decide how likely it is that these similarities are accidental.
      6. In this instance, even if the teacher questions are not counted, it seems obvious that only minor alterations were made to the original document and many responses, including quite lengthy sentences, are entirely the same.
      7. While this *is* an instructional use, you can find happier instructional uses of MS-Word’s reviewing/tracking changes feature here.
Categories: audience-is-teachers, e-learning, office-software, service-is-assessing, Writing 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 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 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: , ,

How to track changes with MS-Word reviewing

2012/01/18 Leave a comment
  1. The classic tool during coauthoring, including providing corrective feedback during grading of assignments: Begin with this screencast (plays in Windows media player on Windows).
  2. Todo: How to combine this with MS-Word Web app?
Categories: audience-is-teachers Tags:

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

2012/01/12 1 comment

  1. Find your file upload writing assignment and click on it: w0
  2. Read the assignment text, write an MS-Word file (format not required, but your teacher will likely send you MS-Word back if she uses track changes) and attach it, like so:  w0a
  3. If this shows, you have finished the assignment: w0b
  4. Wait for notification, then go TBA:review your teacher’s comments.
Categories: all-languages, audience-is-students, documentation, e-learning, lms, Uncategorized, Writing Tags: , ,