VOICEBOARDWhat is it? Voiceboard (VB) is ANVILL's most popular
toolit adds spoken language to discussions, audio journals,
pronunciation exercises, and other forms of oral language practice.
Like text-based forums, VB allows teachers or students to easily
post or respond to an oral/aural assignment. VB encourages
multimedia communication; messages can be text, audio or
video-based.Voiceboard has two modes: one for teachers which allow
Ts to create VBs, add "topics" to existing VBs, and edit messages
that have been posted. The other is for students (pictured at
right). Students can create and post their messages, and, of
course, read and respond to those of others.Voiceboard is easy to
set up and administerin fact, you can create and publish a
voiceboard in about 2 minutes. Students will see the VB as soon as
they log in to your ANVILL course; they can begin adding their
comments right away.How Does VB Work? This short video tutorial
discusses some of the ways teachers use ANVILL, both as a
whole-class complement to discussions or other speech work, and as
a more private kind of portfolio where students can keep a term's
worth of spoken language recordings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4BckINshCgGetting Started with
Voiceboards1) Log into ANVILL and select your course from the
Courses menu.2) From your course home page, you can always see all
the Voiceboards for your class. Sometimes your teacher may put a
copy of it in the lesson menu as well. This lesson, for example is
called "1.11 Our Class Voiceboards".
new2.jpg
Picking a Topic3) Messages are listed in a drop down menu. You
can change topics by clicking on the down arrow. For example, this
topic is called "Pavlovian Observations". Only your teacher can
create new topics.
Reading or Viewing a Message4) Messages are listed on the left
side of the Voiceboard. Click a message to view and/or hear it.
Adding Your Own Message 5) To add a new message, click Add a
Message (top right). A dialog box will pop up asking you if you
would like to allow uoregon.edu to access your camera and
microphone. Click Allow. If you dont want to see this message again
next time you log on, check the Remember box.
Recording
Recording Your Message 6) Enter a title and a comment about the
contents of your message (the text can be brief, but is required.)
Choosing a recording mode: text, audio, or audio and video.
Recording tools appear after you choose one of these
options.Recording and Posting Your Message 7) Click Record to begin
speaking. Click Stop when you're finished. Listen to it--Play.8) If
you like your message, click the Add It! button to submit it. If
you don't like it, click Forget It! to start all over.(Your message
will not be saved unless you click the Add It! button.) Hardware
Set-up Use the Camera/Mic Settings to select your recording
hardware. If you do not see the microphone level meter (green bars)
moving when you speak, your voice is not recording. Go back and
adjust the microphone settings again. Note: Check your machines
system settings (sound input/output), too, if these options do not
work. Posted Messages 9) Once posted, only your instructor can
delete or revise messages.How do I use Voiceboard? Voiceboard is
aimed at extending or jumpstarting class discussions. As such it
can be used in many different ways, from a language practice tool
to a student journal to a broadcast medium, much like a podcast. If
you have a microphone or a webcam, you can be online and
contributing/responding very quickly. Here are some ways faculty at
UO are using it: Some use its podcast-lite capability for short
talks or reviews, such as summarizing a class discussion or
previewing a chapter in an upcoming reading or lecture Others have
Ss rehearse oral presentations, practice pronunciation or give
short reports Language teachers like its "portfolio"
capabilitiesthey have an archive of a student's work for a whole
term/yearand their feedback can be spoken as well All teachers say
that VB lets voices and opinions that dont get heard from the back
of the classroom come to the forefront LIVE CHATWhat is it?Livechat
is ANVILL's conferencing and tutoring tool. It works similarly to
other web-based chat software with the important exception that it
is advertising free and designed for audio and video chats as well
as text.Access is restrictedonly registered course participants can
access the chat function.Once an instructor creates chat rooms for
his/her class, students can use them for text, audio, and/or video
chats. Up to four people can chat at once (network bandwidth is a
consideration for video). Note: A course has no rooms at the
outset--the instructor has to add them. To do so click on Manage
Course > Manage Livechat and then proceed to add as many as you
like--there's no limit.Our initial release of Livechat targets
language learners, especially those participating in tutoring
programs, like YLCs free Language Exchange. Or teachers who've been
able to successfully link their classes together -- ANVILL can
provide a safe platform for students to participate in
class-to-class exchanges.Livechat is designed with audio and video
in mind. All a user needs is a microphone and/or webcam. Livechat
allows chat participants to easily turn on and off their speech or
video inputs. And because it uses Flash, nearly all web browsers
are already configured to work. No other software needs to be
installedit just works (or at least it should).Chat
Instructions-TeachersANVILL's chat tools are course-specific, so
rooms that you set up in the LiveChat Manager for one class (e.g.
SPAN II) aren't available to students in another. 1. To create a
chat room, click on the Manage Course tab, then the Manage LiveChat
tab.
LiveChat Teacher View
2. Type a name for the chat room in the Room Name (blue) box,
and click Create (the name of the room appears in the box on the
left.) 3. To create more rooms, repeat step 2 (there's no limit to
the number of rooms per course). 4. If you want to delete a room,
highlight it (in box on the left) and click Delete. 5. As a
teacher, you can join a conversation from here by highlighting a
room and clicking Join. There's a maximum of 4 speakers per chat
room. 6. Once rooms are created, you can "manage" them from the
list in the Manage Livechat area. 7. Suggestions: 1. Expect to
spend some time helping students correctly configure their
microphones and webcams. 2. Livechat relies on a correctly
configured Flash player plug-in.Chat InstructionsStudentsLivechat1.
From the main menu of your couse--click on the Livechat tab to open
the chat room; there may be many rooms listed (if someone is in
one, the star will be yellow). 2. From the Course Lesson menu (if
your teacher has linked to it from there 3. From a URL (but you'll
still have to log into ANVILL and pick your course first)
Log-in
To use Livechat1. Click on the name of the chat room and Join.
This takes you to a second window. 2. Check your A/V settings: Cam
Settings (requires web cam) and Mic Settings. Can you see yourself?
can you see the volume level increase or decrease? 3. Click on the
buttons at the bottom to activate your camera and microphone. 4.
Start talking (or typing). To go to another room or quit
Livechat
LiveChat in Action (Lyon, France Eugene, OR
1. Click on the "x" in the upper right corner. Doing so exits
you from this chat session. You can now join another room or do
another activity in ANVILL. Suggested LiveChat Uses Virtual office
hours Some students, maybe the same ones who don't speak much in
class, never come to office hours for the kind of
consulting/tutoring that they need to do well on a research paper
or in preparing for exams. Faculty or GTFs who find it hard to fit
in office hours when they're truly available may enjoy the
scheduling freedom that Amiga makes possible. Its particularly good
for short, focused sessions where both parties are bringing a
fairly high level of preparation to the meeting: e.g., clarifying
goals, explaining a lecture, encouraging. Collegial conferencing
Working with a colleague on a grant deadline and she happens to be
home with a sick child and the phone just won't suffice? Need a
brief appearance by an expert in Seattle to provide another
perspective to a class discussion? Want to check in regularly with
fellow collaborators, e.g., teachers in the field just after
they've tried out some new technique? Because it provides more than
one channel (voice and text), personal communication can benefit.
Peer Chats Here, Amiga functions as essentially an online version
of peer advising or tutoring. This is the model we employ with our
Foreign Language Exchange, e.g., you help me with Portuguese and
I'll help you with French. Obviously, the partners need something
to talk about, and initially the more structured this is the better
(at least in language learning)weve got 15 minutes and this is what
were going to accomplish. Chats like these are good early in the
term when you want students to get to know one another better;
later in the term students can set their own parameters and goals.
Group work Like other collaboration tools this one makes it
possible for groups (albeit pairs) to meet online and plan and
discuss class work. This is especially valuable once a project is
underway and group members' roles are well established. An
instructor can create as many chat rooms as necessary. Information
gap tasks seem to work particularly well. Quizzes &
Surveys-OverviewAssessing students' spoken (and written) language
skillsQuizzes and Surveys (Q&S) is ANVILLs tool for creating
and grading on-line quizzes and surveys. As with ANVILL's other
tools, it is optimized for speech, so teachers can create
media-rich tasks and students can respond in a variety of ways,
including via a spoken language response. When it is used in
combination with the Voiceboard and/or Forum, Q&S can provide
teachers with several ways of collecting and assessing spoken
language performance.Input can come from an external source (like
in the example at right) or teachers can simply record themselves
and let students respond in kind, much like in an interview.Items
can be simple and straightforward, What did you do last weekend? to
detailed and involved: Watch the following video, listen to the
questions that accompany it, and respond to them as if you were
addressing an audience of fellow teachers. These instructions
introduce the major components of Q&S, demonstrating how to
quickly create a survey or quiz.Getting Started: Creating a new
Survey or Quiz in ANVILL1. Choose "Add a Quiz" from the Manage
Course menu (the pencil icon). 2. Give your quiz a title and a
short description and click save. 3. This takes you back to the
lesson menu, where you need to click on "Manage Quiz" to begin
adding items or edit existing ones. The first question is already
there waiting to be edited.
Quiz Creation
Settings: Custom Introduction/instructions | Edit |1. Click on |
Edit | 2. You can customize introductory and end pages using the
Change button. 3. Intro Page Message This is where you setup the
quiz/survey, telling the Ss what theyre going to do. 4. End Message
This is where you indicate that the test has ended. Here you can
link to another activity and/or give further instructions. 5. Show
progress indicator This is where you allow the Ss to see how many
items theyve completed (recommended). 6. Allow students to go back
This lets you restrict navigation within the quiz (discouraged in
surveys). 7. When finished with Settings, press save. If you are
editing previously created settings, you can choose Save to save
the new settings, and Cancel to restore settings..
Item Creation 1. Question Number (1). Here you assign a number
to the item (you dont have to be sequential).2. 3. Heading (2). You
can use this to tell the Ss something about the item (e.g., special
instructions for answering, or include a hint). Note: The heading
or category can be hidden from the survey/quiz Ss.
Heading
4. Question Text (3). Use the text (WYSIWYG) editor to write
your question (or paste from MS Word). Note that different text
sizes and fonts can be used. Also, multimedia can be part of the
question (see below) there are buttons for images and YouTube;
hyperlinks are possible, too).
Text Editing
5. Audio and Video files to include in the Question (4). Heres
where you can speak the question or include an audio or video file
for students to listen to or watch. You can either link to an
existing file, or create a new one using the recording features for
either audio or video, if a microphone or camera is connected.
Audio and Video
6. If you add files, click the Save button (or cancel to
eliminate all changes). In addition, clicking the Autoplay button
will permit uploaded files (sound and video) to begin playing as
soon as the item appears. For directly recorded audio and video
(record audio, record video), the student has to click the play
button.Item Types 1. Answer (5). Question type. After changing the
question type, press the Save button to bring up the appropriate
options for that question type. Multiple choice is the default. The
question fields will depend on the type of question chosen. For
multiple choice, you can indicate the correct answer. Scaled
questions will have no options, while Short and Long Answer
questions will have room for the correct text (for graders). The
last choice, Spoken Answer, is what you want to use to have Ss
respond orallythey'll need a microphone to record themselves.2. 3.
Allow students/survey takers to add comments? (6) An option
allowing Ss to leave comments is available at the bottom of the
pagevery useful for surveys.
Comments?
4. Finally, choose to Save Changes & View the question, to
Delete it, or Cancel to eliminate changes made to the question. 5.
The screenshot below shows the output from the information in the
screenshots above and on the previous page.
Quiz ResultsBesides the basic set up choices in Q &S
(introductory/concluding remarks, skipping ?s, etc.) ANVILL gives
you two more important options: the chance to make your quizzes
available to those not in your course (very useful for Surveys)
and, of course, it lets you see the results of those who have taken
your Q or S. On the upper right hand side of the screen you will
see the Options Menu and these links URL for unregistered quiz
takers. This allows you to send potential respondents a web address
so they can take the quiz without being registered in an ANVILL
course. View Responses. Here's where you see your students' quiz or
survey results. For objective items (T/F, Multiple Choice, etc.)
the computer will evaluate the answers. For the open-ended items,
including "spoken answers", you have to assess each item. There'
The results can be saved as a file (including Excel) for use in an
online gradebook. These results include a list of all who have
taken the survey/quiz and the time they needed to do so. Quiz
EditingMost quizzes and surveys need to be edited. The Add Question
| Renumber Questions are two useful tools for doing so.
1. Click (+) Add Questions from the Settings (first screenshot
above) to begin creating your quiz or survey. Here is where you add
items, including any associated media.
2. The screenshot above for item #3 creates the quiz output
below.
The Administration ScreenPublishing, Managing, Deleting Weve
already seen this Administration screen (below). Notice it has
several other options, including:1. Publish/Unpublish post. This
allows you to construct a quiz or survey, and make it available to
students when you wish. 2. Manage. This link takes you back to the
questions (see screenshot above) so that you can edit your quiz. 3.
Delete. You may decide that you no longer want the quiz.