Another way to use NanoGong is in Forums. Using Forums can be a useful way to track conversations, practice pronunciation, or have a Q&A session with your students, and this can function much like an audio log. This type of speaking test or activity can be done as a class, in groups, or individually.
In addition, using the Forum's Grade settings, you can give grades and those scores will be included in the Gradebook. The Forum's Grade section is shown in the next screenshot:
Aggregate type is as we have seen before, the options being: No ratings, Average of Ratings, Count of Ratings, Maximum of Ratings, Minimum of Ratings, and Sum of Ratings.
- The Grade scale can be set as we have seen in the Voiceboard and Voiceshadow, the options being: Separate and Connected Ways of Knowing, No Grade, or on a scale from 1 to 100.
- If Restrict ratings to post with dates in this range is selected, it will ensure the students complete the assignment within the time period provided, and if they don't, they will be penalized.
Once we have decided that we want to create a speaking test or activity in a Forum, the first thing we will need to do after initially installing NanoGong is to set up the Filters and HTML area. Setting up the HTML area will allow NanoGong recordings to happen directly in the forums. The process for doing this is fairly simple; all you need to do is extract the appropriate files to the appropriate places. The instructions for doing this are located at http://gong.ust.hk/nanogong/moodle_inst.html.
Once you have it installed, and this is something the site administrator will need to do, you will see a new icon button added to the HTML bar in your Forum. This is shown in the next screenshot:
As you can see here, there is now an Insert/Modify Sound icon located between the Insert image and Insert table icons. Clicking on this icon will open a pop-up window containing a NanoGong player. You will be able to record directly into this and it will be added to the Forum. Let's walk through setting one up. Here is what the pop-up window looks like:
As seen from the previous screenshot, this simple pop-up gives you access to the recorder and allows you to enter a Caption. I have entered Question #1 for ours. Note that the sound file is automatically saved after recording. The Save button is only used if you want to export the file.
I am going to assume everyone is, at this point, comfortable setting up Forums, but if you aren't please check out this link: http://docs.moodle.org/en/mod/forum/index. We are going to call ours 'Turkish Q&A Test #1'. We want this to be individual student tests, so we will set our Forum up as Each Person Posts One Discussion. In our Audio Forum Introduction, we will explain the test directions and guidelines.
For the grading, we will set it to an Average of Ratings and the Grade will be out of a possible 20 points.
We have two options now. First, we can test the student's listening comprehension and speaking skills by recording a question the student must respond to. Our second option is testing their reading comprehension skills in addition to their speaking. Either way can work, depending on your needs. For our purpose, we will use the former.
Now, we will record our initial question and wait for the students to respond. Our initial question will be something simple, and from there we will move on to more complex or advanced grammar and vocabulary. We will give our question the caption Question #1.
When we have recorded our question and are happy with it, we will click on the Save and display button. When we do this, we will see our new Forum displayed, showing any text or image we've added, in addition to our recording, which is shown as the Insert/Modify Sound Icon. The Forum Introduction is shown in the next screenshot:
Once the speaker icon is clicked on, the player will load and the students will be able to listen to the recording you've made. Once they listen, they will need to click on the Add a new discussion topic button to make their response. They will follow the same pattern, clicking on the Insert/Modify Sounds button, recording their response, and posting it.
Once the student posts their response, you can go to their post and listen to what they said. Once you have listened, you can rate the student's performance and make another post yourself. An example of a forum with the instructor interacting with multiple students is shown in the next screenshot:
This is a good way to keep track of performance and language development, especially if done over an entire course or term.