Author Archives: Markus Killer

Respondus 4.0

Respondus 4.0® is a powerful tool for creating and managing exams that can be printed to paper or published directly to Canvas, Blackboard, Brightspace, Moodle, and other learning systems. Exams can be created offline using a familiar Windows environment, or moved between different learning systems. Whether you are a veteran of online testing or relatively new to it, Respondus 4 will save you hours on each project.

https://web.respondus.com/he/respondus/ [accessed: 27/05/2023]

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https://ois.atu.edu/2018/08/respondus-4-0-test-creator-update/ [accessed: 27/05/2023]

Review:

Randomly generated physics exercises (moodle question bank)

This is a DLH (Digital Learning Hub, canton of Zurich) funded project, focussing on physics exercises which will result in slightly different values being displayed for each and every student (question type: Formulas with interactive JSXGraph3 graphs), making cheating / copying (home)work really hard and encouraging individualised practice. In addition, the STACK/STACK4 question types are explored.

Project description (in German):

https://dlh.zh.ch/hubnews/143-projekte/projekte-vorstellung/555-zufallsuebungen-physik

Demo moodle implementation (in German):
https://phys.bzu.ch/mdl/course/view.php?id=33



spaCy

Extremely promising new Python NLP tool: spaCy (commercial open-source software):

Unfortunately, it is only able to deal with English input at the moment and installation on Windows seems to be tricky. The project is currently under intense development and it will be interesting to check the following links on a regular basis:

Link to github project

Link to documentation

License: AGPLv3 (free for open-source projects), changed to MIT License (27 Sep 2015)

24-07-2015 15-22-36

 

Source: http://spacy.io/index.html#detailed-speed-comparison [accessed: 24/07/2015]

The bizarre world of instructional LPs

Instructional LPs - Relaxed English

Instructional LPs – Relaxed English – Excerpts on BBC Radio 4

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33464722 [accessed: 18/07/2015]

Programme description:  «How to make an Archive on 4» available on BBC iPlayer

Ever wondered how to make an Archive on 4? Here’s your chance to find out!

Alan Dein enters the strange world of instructional records where you can teach yourself just about anything – from yodelling to training your budgie to talk.

It all started in 1901 when Polish émigré Jacques Roston harnessed the new technology of sound recording to teach foreign languages, signing up such luminaries as George Bernard Shaw and JRR Tolkien to lend their support.

By the 50s and 60s you could buy LPs on how to do just about anything – from keep fit to playing a musical instrument, relaxation and passing your driving test.

Perhaps the most surprising are those which help you to train your pet budgerigar to talk – with help from Sparkie, Britain’s favourite budgie, who supposedly had a vocabulary of over 500 words.

With help from Sparkie, Alan Dein tells the story of instructional records and, along the way, reveals a few of the secrets of how to make an Archive on 4.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b062dhgb [accessed: 18/07/2015]

 

 

A tour of the British Isles in accents

A dialect coach, Andrew Jack, gives a tour of the accents of the British Isles. (Release date: 20/02/2014, remix, using google maps 02/04/2014 by Philip Barker)

Source (audio): http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01slnp5 [accessed: 21/06/2015]
Source (remix): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8mzWkuOxz8 [accessed: 21/06/2015]