General plugins

Hello Paul

I have added your assignment-it all works fine and will be trying it out with some of my Year 4 pupils (8-9 year old). I see it as a good way to get less able writers to contribute orally.

Thankyou for sharing.

Hi all,
I've just released a version of the Online Audio Recording assignment type for Moodle 2.x (works on 2.0, 2.1 and current 2.2dev). It can be downloaded from the plugins database - it's currently tagged as a beta, as it has been tested but not exhaustively (nor in a production environment). Any feedback from anyone who's willing to test this would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
Paul

Hello,

Online Audio gives the following text when i am in the debugging mode:

Strict Standards: Declaration of assign_submission_onlineaudio::get_files() should be compatible with that of assign_plugin::get_files() in /home/aaa.aa.nl/www/mod/assign/locallib.php on line 293

Can somebody repair this?

Regards, Kees.

Hi Frankie,

I don't see why the recorder itself couldn't be adapted to work in a block.  It's currently got a bit of assignment-specific stuff in how/where it submits the recorded file, though - I'll investigate splitting the recorder out into a standalone widget that can be configured to submit the file wherever you want, which would make using it in a block (or in the editor, or as a question type, etc) easier.

Cheers,
Paul

Talking to myself here

I'm now after much drama, running 2.1.2+, however the old problem persists.

I installed onlineaudiko, into mod/assignment/type/onlineaudio and it worked fine. It still works fine - in one course only. I can add new activities to the course,

But, it simply ignores the activity in any other course? and won't install the recorder.

It installs the Activity page with the title and description - but not the recorder.

anyone have any ideas.

I'll try reinstalling the module again - but I dont know, can I do that?

Hi John,

The idea is still on my radar, but I haven't had a chance to investigate the repository system and see how possible it is... you're welcome to take the recording widget and have a crack at it yourself - let me know if you need a hand working with the widget, but the assignment code should give you a reasonable idea (and there are some comments in the widget's source which might help a little).

Cheers,
Paul

Hi Martin,

As per the installation instructions on the download page and in various posts in this thread, you need to put the "onlineaudio" folder into /mod/assignment/type/ - NOT just /mod/.  I've just added a note stating this to the description in the plugin DB, which will hopefully be easier to spot than the installation instructions (which aren't necessarily seen when you're downloading a plugin...).

Regards,
Paul

Hi,

It's not currently possible to have the audio recorded in WAV format, but I'll add it to my todo list.  The recorder actually uses WAV internally, but converts to MP3 before it uploads - so it shouldn't be too hard to add an option to just upload the WAV without converting.  Other formats are not so easy, as Flash can't do the conversion by itself - MP3 is only possible because there's a very small MP3 encoder (Shine) which can be compiled to a Flash component; I'm not aware of any similar encoders for other formats/codecs (though I haven't looked, so that's not to say they don't exist).

-Paul

supplement: the tool works on android tablet PC just like what Alex Goodyear posted in this page.

Hi Frankie,

The recorder can certainly be used elsewhere - it's available in a separate Github repository as "local-audio-recorder" (it's a little lacking in documentation at the moment, so if you need a hand getting it working in a non-Moodle project, feel free to flick me a private message).  It can be configured to either submit the recording via HTTP POST to a URL of your choice or to pass it in to a Javascript callback, depending on your needs (for instance, the assignment module uses HTTP POST but the repository plugin uses a callback).

-Paul

I see what's happened...

Moodle 2.3's new assignment activity is enabled by default, but doesn't seem to support the online audio plugin.

The old assignment activity is disabled by default. By enabling this, I'm now able to use the online audio plugin.

Cheers,

Mark

Hi Mark,

If you'd like to use it in 2.3, I'd suggest using the submission plugin for the new assignment module - it supports a few more settings than the plugin for the old assignment module, and has had more work put into it lately.

-Paul

Hi Martin,

Is that a request or an offer?  I've certainly considered it, but I've been holding the fort as the sole developer supporting my university's e-learning systems for the better part of the last couple of years - so I haven't had time to look into it, as it's not something that is high on our priorities list at present.  It's also not the highest item on my personal priorities list relating to audio recording - before doing much else, I'd like to rebuild the recorder to have a more flexible (and easily translated) interface, and ideally to support HTML5 audio capture where available.  That's all still a bit of a pipe dream at the moment, but I'll hopefully have the time to be able to revisit it in a couple of months or so.

-Paul

Hi Wen,

I work with EFL/ESL elearning a lot and have developed a few applications to meet the specific needs of various English tests.

The Flash recorder app is open source so we'd be able to customise it without any problems.

What I suggest is to leave the default functions of the recorder app as they are and add an option to include a small external XML configuration file that the app can load when its URL is passed in as a FlashVar. In that configuration file, we could set time limits as well as other parameters to adjust the recorder's behaviour. In this way, we could create a number of "profiles" that teachers and curriculum developers can select to meet their particular needs, e.g. toefl_speaking_test.xml or ielts_speaking_practice.xml

How does that sound?

Hi Wen,

Although I've certainly heard the suggestion before, time limits are not something which is (to my knowledge) useful at my university - so I don't currently have time to work on it, sorry.  That said, I have been planning a rewrite of the recorder - so I might be able to fit in some extra features such as time limits; I can't even begin to guess when that might happen though.

However, as Matt pointed out, it's open source - so if you or somebody else has the time and requisite Flash (and PHP, for the Moodle side) skills to add this functionality, be my guest!  Don't let my lack of time hold you back

-Paul

Hi Wen,

Did you know that there is a PoodLL quiz question type available? It does not support timing like you want, but you could do a single questions quiz and put a time limit on the quiz. And, not only does the PoodLL question let you record audio, it will also let you record video.

Also, the PoodLL online audio assignment submission type will let you put a time limit on the recording, if you were to use it.

The current version of PoodLL even lets you use smart phones for the recording. I just created a one question quiz and took it with my student login account using my Samsung S4 phone and it recorded in HD. Looks really nice.

Let me know by direct email (in my profile) if you would like access to my dev site to try it out.

AL

Hi Frankie,

works for me, I have both 2.2 and 2.3 installed.  The 2.2 is listed separately under the Assignment 2.2 as Online Audio Recording, but the newer one (2.3) is not.  There is just an "Assignment" option, right at the top of the list. After selecting that there is a checkbox in the form to select Online Audio Recording.

Boris.

Just a stab in the dark, but have you tried after temporarily deactivating PoodLL?  Maybe there's some conflict with the way mp3 files are handled while poodll is running.

Hi Frankie,

The fact that the Cancel and Upload buttons (and the progress bar) are visible is a sign that it hasn't loaded correctly.  The most common reason for this is that an incompatible version of Flash Player is being used.

Which browser (and version) are you using, and which version of Flash Player is in use?  You can check the latter by right-clicking on the recorder (broken though it may be) - one of the items in the context menu should be "About Adobe Flash Player [version]".  Note that some browsers can have multiple Flash Player versions installed at the same time - so even if you have the latest version installed, it might be using an older one...

-Paul

Hi Rob,

Thanks for bringing it to my attention - that Github issue must have slipped my notice (perhaps the email notification got filtered as spam?).

It looks as though the Pepper (PPAPI) version of Flash Player, which is usually the default in Chrome, is in some way preventing the HTTP POST request from the recording widget.  I'll try to find a workaround (if necessary, I can implement an automatic toggle to use a completely different submission method in Chrome, but I hope I can avoid that) - but in the mean time, if you have control over the computers in question (i.e. a computer workroom), you can disable the Pepper Flash Player but leave the NPAPI version enabled (chrome://plugins - restart Chrome after making changes) and it should start working again.

Hi Rob (and everyone else),

I've just released v1.1.1 of the assignment submission plugin, which fixes the Chrome issue - no more need to switch to the NPAPI version of Flash Player.

-Paul