Working with Sound

 

Audio material is regularly used when teaching speaking and listening in foreign languages. Therefore the teachers and the students should be able to edit and modify audio as well as texts.
Probably the best freeware available for editing sound is called AUDACITY.


Audacity Basics - you should be able to
- install Audacity and the lame library which enables export to mp3
- open a file in Audacity
- edit the file: cut and paste, fade in/out, change speed, delete, add silence
- create a new file
- combine two files (e.g. speech + background music)
- inserting silence (e.g. as a space for an answer)
- changing the speed or pitch (carefully!)

EXAMPLE 1 - TEACHER'S JOB - THE SEARCH

Browse Youtube for videos suitable for teaching adult beginners English.
View, listen and choose; consider the topic, level, speed, quality of language, accent...
Convert the video to mp3 using an online convertor.
Cut out a part of the recording, and publish in your webpage - it is almost the same process as inserting an image.

You can use Free YouTube to MP3 Converter to get audio from youtube easily, or find free online converters. Be careful what you click on, this type of software often brings unwanted installations or even viruses!

EXAMPLE 2 - GOOD TEACHING PRACTICE
Choose an online audio resource - a podcast or TED. Listen, and share the link and your opinion in the comments to this blog entry.

What does the word "podcast" mean? Go to Podomatic, create an account and browse the site. How can we use it in teaching English?

Good examples - Teacher Luke, Splendid Speaking for advances learners
Podcast on podcasting in ELT

More online podcasts and streams
Ted Talks on Education - free online lectures!
Paramind
Oxford University Podcasts

Free text to audio:
http://www.fromtexttospeech.com/

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TASK 1 - THE CREDIT PROJECT

• to be done in groups of max. 4 people
• Product: high quality audiorecording 5-10'. 
• Content: audio dramatisation of a literary scene according to your own choice; may include special sound effects.

Objectives:

• to practise pronunciation, including peer correction; 
• to revise British and American literature and support learning for lit. exams; 
• to master basic sound editing skills in Audacity; 
• to design a system for recording within online communication; 
• to develop cooperation and organisation skills; 
• to list a set of  criteria and evaluate the schoolmates' projects objectively.

Tips:
Communicate online within the group, decide who wil record what.  Using audacity, you can even create a non-real-time dialogue!
Record, listen, re-record, listen, re-record... focus on quality!
Edit the recording in Audacity. Record and add appropriate sounde effects if suitable.
Finalise the file, export it and save as mp3, and add to your personal webpage (each member of the group).



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EXTRAS
Sound files extensions:
wav -  Standard audio file container format used mainly in Windows PCs. Commonly used for storing uncompressed (PCM), CD-quality sound files, which means that they can be large in size—around 10 MB per minute. Wave files can also contain data encoded with a variety of (lossy) codecs to reduce the file size (for example the GSM or MP3 formats). Wav files use a RIFF structure

mp3 - compressed, MPEG Layer III Audio. Is the most common sound file format used today

flac - Free Lossless Audio Codec
ape - Monkey's Audio lossless audio compression format
ogg - A free, open source container format supporting a variety of formats, the most popular of which is the audio format Vorbis; compression similar to MP3

webm - Royalty-free format created for HTML5 video
aiff - Standard audio file format used by Apple. It could be considered the Apple equivalent of wav

ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_file_format



Sluchové pole (nebo oblast slyšitelnosti) je rozsah všech zvuků, které dokáže lidské ucho vnímat. Vnímání zvuku je u člověka omezeno slyšitelnými frekvencemi (přibližně 16–20 000 Hz). U každé frekvence je odlišný rozdíl intenzit, jež slyšíme. Lidský sluchový orgán je nejcitlivější v oblasti frekvencí 1–5 kHz.

http://www.wikiskripta.eu/index.php/Pr%C3%A1h_sluchu_a_sluchov%C3%A9_pole

Moodle training and exploration

Moodle will be a continuous project; the tasks will appear in this blog entry one by one.

Gradually, you should build the knowledge about available possibilities, and the skills necessary to use them for effective teaching and learning.

Let's start with the basics:

TASK 1

1. Go to moodle ujep - https://moodle.pf.ujep.cz/course/view.php?id=1177
2. Open menu Sprava kurzu; check the settings
3. Go to the the main screen (https://moodle.pf.ujep.cz/course/view.php?id=1177&notifyeditingon=1)
4. Click on Zapnout rezim uprav - upper right
5. Scroll down, choose Pridat temata, add one; 
6. Edit its heading - use your own name instead of Tema XX.

Now you have created your personal training field :)

Suggestion: As a group, agree on common areas of interest - possibly an exam you are all taking in this term (BritLit, Phonology)- and use Moodle to present learning and practice materials.

TASK 2

1. Add a test to your study material. The first dialogue is just a frame - after doing the settings, it is time to...

2. ... Add questions to the test. Open the test by clicking, choose - Upravit test - Přidat - Novou úlohu. Explore the test formats! Focus on True-false, Matching and Multiple choice.

Photos, Images and Hoaxes

 

SUMMARY

The principles defining a good (=memorable) photograph are identical to principles enhancing acquisition, learning + remembering. Therefore, they should be applied in teaching, especially when using images as visual support for presentation or language production.

TASK

1. Take some pictures at your current location. Be creative :)

2. Make a collage of two or more chosen photos from your set of pictures. Insert the final photo with a suitable comment into your Homepage (index.html) and publish online. 
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Visual support is vital in any teaching situation. As English teachers, we use pictures of objects to teach vocabulary, photos of situations to stimulate communication, authentic visual materials to teach realia and culture...

What characteristics of an image influence its effect on remembering the vocabulary?

• context or the absence of context
• vivid colours
• contrast
• golden ratio
• the size of the target object

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Language production

One image is worth a thousand words. One image can stimulate thousands of words. 

How can you use images in language teaching? Take a photo and...

The image in ELT - pdf to download

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Compare these two photos:

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Making a simple collage in Photoshop:

1. ^A^C^V inserting img2 into img1

2. ^T for transformation - shift, rotate... place img2

3. Mask  - cover all (a black mask)

4. B - brush - paint into the mask (white brush) and uncover img2

5. X - switches between black and white brush (undo)

experiment with the brush settings (krytí, hustota)

Making a collage in GIPM - Youtube

inspiration Martin Stranka

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 WHAT ARE THE KEY SKILLS IN THE FIELD OF PHOTOGRAPHY FOR  THE ENGLISH TEACHER TO MASTER?

My suggestion:
1. Basic knowledge of the electronic image formats and their specifics.
2. Basic editing abilities: crop, contrast, colour adjustment
3. Basic photo-making skills and knowledge (to be able to prepare original materials, and to document school events, projects, students'activities and products).

4. Advanced editing abilities - collage (to create more original materials, and to be resistant to hoax), inserting text to the image...

Typical Viral :D

Any other suggestions?
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What shall we know?

1. How to compose a photography

Golden ratio - zlatý řez

Digineff-  základy kompozice

Practical tips:

concentrate on a single idea, object, feeling

get closer, fill almost the whole field with the target object/situation

2. How to save an image

raw - full data

jpg - compressed (lossy)

tiff - for print, usually lossless; can handle CMYK

bmp - full data (bitmap)

gif - small (and animated); saves only used colours; 8bit

png - lossless, successor of gif, 8-24-48 bit

For web, an image with the longer side of 1600px is big enough, Let's say the size limit is cca 50KB - to save space.

When reducing the size, always keep the original untouched! Save the small version as a new file, say, IMG2345_Small.jpg. 

JPEGS reduce the size exponetially, so if you reduce the original at 80%, the amount of data may be reduced form 12MB to 1,5 MB. 

More in Wiki (in Czech)

and Wiki (in English)

Formaty pro ukladani fotografii

3. The basic editing skills you should master:
1. Compressing, saving in various formats (with different extensions) and size
2. Crop (ořez)
3. Changing brightness, sharpness, hue and other basic features
4. Making a part of the image transparent

Collage in Photoshop - tutorial in Czech
List of  Photoshop Hotkeys - EN
List of  Photoshop Hotkeys - CZ

Useful Photoshop Hotkeys
B - Brush
C - Crop
H - Hand
J - Healing brush
L - Lasso
S - Stamp
W - Wand

TIPS
How to make things transparent in Photoshop:
New Image - Background transparent
Import the image into a new layer
Magic wand - choose parts which should be transparent

Layer - Mask - Hide the choice (Vrstvy - maska - skrýt výběr)

How to make things transparent in GIMP:
Layers – Transparency – Add alpha channel
Choose the background using the magic wand.
The simplest method is to use Edit → Clear

You can also test transparency in Word - add the image into text and choose Formát obrázku - pozice - před textem.


Want a top quality image legally?
Visit Getty.
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... want to know more?

http://digineff.cz/

http://www.digimanie.cz/

http://www.fotoradce.cz/

http://fotoroman.cz/

"Kreativní fotografie si neklade za cíl zobrazit realitu (takové to tam Mařenko bylo) ale zobrazit 
něco víc. Zobrazit emoce (pocity, nálady ...), které autor na místě cítil a chce vám předat.

Když se díváte na fotografie z vaší dovolené obvykle si vybavíte pocity, jaké to tam bylo (jé podívej - tady jsme byli ...). Díváte-li se ale na fotografie z cizí dovolené, vidíte jenom obyčejné pláže, hrady, zámky atp. Prostě emoce spojené s místem a zážitkem vám chybí a proto vám často tyto fotografie připadají obyčejné. Dobrá fotografie vám dokáže předat pocity a zážitky i z míst, kde jste nebyli. A o tom to je...

Když stojíte v lese, vidíte široko okolo sebe, vnímáte vítr, šumění lesa, vůni jehličí a do zad vás pálí slunce. Toto vše na fotografii však chybí. Je tam jen obrazový výsek a to ještě ve 2 rozměrech (3 rozměr prostoru / perspektivy chybí). A proto je to tak těžké. A proto je pokoušet se o to taky tak krásné!"

http://fotoroman.cz/

Behaviourism, Communicative Language Teaching and e-learning

 

ref

Confused? Try this or this.

SUMMARY:

Behaviorism - REINFORCEMENT

• a change in external behavior is achieved through using reinforcement and repetition 
• desired behavior is rewarded, while the undesired behavior is not rewarded
• Pavlov, Skinner - Verbal Behavior

Cognitivism - METACOGNITION

• internal thoughts and external forces are both an important part of the cognitive process
• seeks to explain the process of knowledge acquisition and the subsequent effects on the mental structures within the mind
• student must be an active participant in their own learning process

Constructivism - ACTIVE REORGANISATION

• people actively take what they are being taught and add it to their previous knowledge and experiences, creating a unique reality
• learners are not passive recipients of information, but that they actively construct their knowledge in interaction with the environment and through the reorganization of their mental structures

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(philosophy_of_education)

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What comes next?  Connectivism as a Digital Age Learning Theory:

"There is no doubt that online learning is a direct technological response to different learning cultures, methods, and inspirations.

The established learning theories of behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism each contribute in unique ways to the design of online materials through their ideas of how learning takes place: Behaviorist strategies teach facts and what is needed for understanding concepts,

cognitive strategies focus on how the process should be implemented for the most successful learning, constructivist strategies use a shift toward real-life application, where the learner is given the opportunity to construct personal meanings from what is presented. 

Connectivism can be used as an important instructional guide or theory to develop previous learning theories for their application to a globalized and networked world."

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How are these theories reflected in e-learning?

e-learning = learning done by studying at home using computers and courses provided on the internet

What is the difference between online teaching and e-learning?

elearning platforms:

5 best platforms with comparison 

20 best platforms

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We have Moodle. Open, login (same as stag) and register for the course KAJ/MTF Moodle Training Field. Within a week, your role will be changed from student to teacher, and you will be able to modify the course.

Today - go to moodle sandbox.

Login as a teacher.

Explore the settings and menus.

Tips: 

Right upper corner - turn editing on. First thing to do, to be able to edit.

Click on Add an activity or resource. Choose File. Explore the whole menu which appears. Try various settings.