Sony Foreign Language Lab

The SONY foreign Language Lab enables students to interact with their instructor using computers equipped with headphones & microphones. Students can also practice with each other in pairs or groups as assigned by the teacher. Teachers can distribute images, text, audio or video prompts to their classes and collect the recordings of sudents' responses to evaluate.

For a detailed tutorial check out Lori's packet on the SJS Technology Integration Page [1]

Using Conductor:

Attending Students

• Click the Attend button.
• While the Attend button is flashing red, you may click student station icons to delete students from the attending group. (If you accidentally delete a student from the attending group, students may double-click the Soloist icon on their desktops to attend the session.)
• Initially, all students who are attending the session a replaced in Group 1, as indicated by the yellow shading on each attending student's station icon.

Interacting with Students

• All Call – Click the All Call button to stop student recordings and to talk to everyone attending the session. The All Call button will blink to let you know that the All Call feature is working.
• Intercom – Click the Intercom button followed by the student station icon for the student,or group of students, to speak to the selected student station(s).
• Model – Click the Model button for everyone attending to hear the selected student or group of students speak.
• Monitor – Click the Scanning Monitor button to listen to students or student groups. The default setting loops Left to Right for 5 seconds per student. The Scanning Monitor button blinks to let you know the feature is working. Change the settings by choosing Scanning Monitor from the Settings menu. The monitored student or student group station icon(s) will be highlighted to let you know which student(s) you currently hear.
• Pairing Students-Click the Pairs button. From the Settings menu, click the All Students button to pair all students who are attending the session. If you have students in program groups, or in a library group, you may also choose to pair students only within specific groups. (Example: Students assigned to the library group are not in your class. If you pair "All Students" even the library students will be included.) You may exclude the library group or other specified group from pairing, depending on the options you select under "Who in Pairs" in the Pair Assignments window. Pair settings may be left to right, front to back, random, or teacher selected. If the pair settings are teacher selected, click the student station icons of the students in the order you want them paired. (If you have an odd number of attending students, the leftover student will be grouped with the last pair of students.)Click OK to establish pairs. To stop students from working in pairs, click the Pairs button again.Gray shading= Student not attending Yellow shading= Student attending

• Grouping Students- To group students, click the Confer Groups button. The default conference group setting places all attending students in the same group. To change the way students are grouped, Choose Conference Groups from the Settings menu, and then choose one of the conference setting types (includes Left to Right, Front to Back, Random, or Teacher Selected.) Click OK to set the conference groups. To turn off conference groups, click the Confer Groups button.

Program Control Tools

The Program Control Tools allow you to send information from the Robotel computer station (the computer station beside the teacher's Conductor station) to all attending student stations. Use Program Groups 1 and 2 for cassettes or regular interaction with students. (Usually this setting will be yellow, with all students in program group 1). When you have assigned students to one or more program groups, a Group Call button appears at the bottom right of your screen under the All Call button. Clicking one of the Group Call buttons allows you to speak to only the selected group.

Sending an Audio CD to Student Stations

1. Click the Assign button.
2. Click the pink CD/DVD button, and then click Assign again to assign students to the CD/DVD group. You may use the All button to assign all stations to the same group.
3. Place the CD in the Robotel computer. The CD should open in Windows Media Player automatically. If it does not, use My Computer to navigate to your CD and open the audio file.

• When sending an audio CD out to student stations, the All Call button should NOT be on. The All Call button prevents students from hearing the audio CD.

• To talk to students while the CD is playing click the MIC Cut button and students will hear your voice over the CD.

To send the screen of the Robotel computer out to student stations

1. use the Robotel computer to open what you want the students to see. (Remember that your students will see whatever is on the Robotel screen.)
2. On the Switcher Control, click the button for the group to which the students are assigned (it will probably be the pink group for CD/DVD.)
3. Click the Send Screen button. The number of conferences will be determined by the number of students attending the session.

Sending a DVD to Student Stations

Click the Assign button. Click the pink CD/DVD button, then click Assign again to assign students to the CD/DVD group. You may use the All button to assign all attending stations to the same group. Place DVD in the... !!!UPDATE NEEDED !!!

When sending a DVD out to student stations, the All Call button should NOT be on. The All Call button prevents students from hearing the audio. To talk to students while the DVD is playing, click the MIC Cut button and students will hear your voice over the DVD. To send the picture of the DVD out to student stations, use the Switcher Control to click the button for the group to which the students are assigned (it will probably be the pink group for CD/DVD.) Then click the Send Screen button.

Using Soloist to Record Your Own Audio Lessons

1. Open Soloist.
2. Click the red record button to begin recording your lesson.
3. Click the black square to stop recording.
4. When you are finished working, click the Open file or the close button and you will be prompted to save your work. Save your work in your Lessons folder.
5. Choose Monaural as the recording type and choose MP3 as the file type.

Giving Students Control of Their Computers

If the student station is attending the session, the student will not be able to control anything but Soloist and volume control on his computer. Even if a student tries to close Soloist while Conductor is still running on the Teacher station, he will not be allowed to do so. Giving students control of their computer stations allows them to use Microsoft Office and browse the Internet. Click the Enable Windows button within your Conductor software to give students control of their computer stations.

Using Soloist:

Students must log in to the language lab computer using their network account. After logon, the soloist program will automatically start. This process takes a couple of minutes DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CLOSE SOLOIST UNTIL IT HAS COMPLETELY STARTED.

To record Student responses to assignments in the Recordings Folder

• The Conductor software must be open on the teacher station computer in order for the students' Soloist software to run properly.
• Click the red record button to begin recording.
• To stop recording, click the button with the black square.
• If the student Clicks on the "Save Icon" or closes Soloist or opens a new file, he will be prompted to save his recording.
• All student recordings should be saved in the Recordings folder inside the folder labeled with the teacher's name. Files should be saved as MP3 files to conserve storage space.

Known Technology Issues:

"crackling sound in headphones" or "only side of the headphones works"

make sure the headphone plug is completely plugged into the robotel box under your desk. if it persists, notify the teacher as the headphone may be damaged

"can't find my recording"

check the desktop and other drives on the computer you were working on. Also ask your teacher to check other folders in the RECORDINGS folder in case you saved it in the wrong place, be sure that you saved your recording in the correct folder assigned by your teacher by re-saving the file if necessary