Adding a Poodll Read Aloud Activity
Margarita Berezyanskaya
Last Update il y a 19 jours
The Avenue Poodll Read Aloud activity allows teachers to select a reading passage for students to practice. Students first listen to a model reading, then record themselves reading the passage aloud. Poodll automatically assesses the recording for reading accuracy, speed, and fluency (words per minute). Teachers can also review and manually grade submissions to ensure greater accuracy. After completing the activity, learners can view their scores, listen to their recordings, and review any identified reading errors.
Using the Poodll Read Aloud Activity to Enhance Learning
The Poodll Read Aloud activity is a valuable tool for blended and online learning. It allows the entire class to complete an oral reading activity at the same time, eliminating the need for teachers to assess learners individually during class. Because students can also complete the activity outside of class, instructors can make more effective use of face-to-face or synchronous online class time.
Teachers can review student recordings and scores at a later time and, if necessary, manually adjust the automatically generated grades.
The Poodll Read Aloud activity can be used for both skill-building classroom activities and skill-using reading and pronunciation tasks. It provides learners with multiple opportunities to develop their reading skills while allowing teachers to collect and store samples of oral reading performance. When used as an assessment, grades can be recorded directly in the course grade book.
Watch the Introducing the Read Aloud video for an introduction to the Poodll Read Aloud activity.
Step-by-Step Instructions for Adding a Poodll Read Aloud Activity
1. At the top of the Course Homepage, click on the Edit mode toggle button in the upper right corner of the screen to activate the editing tools.
Note: The toggle moves to the right, indicating that course editing is now on. Look for editing icons on the course page, this indicates that course editing is now on.
2. Hover your cursor over the dotted line between two activities.
Note: The Add an Activity or resource or Subsection button (plus icon) appears.
3. Click on the Plus icon.
4. Click on the Activities or resources option.
5. In the Add an activity or resource panel, click on the Poodll Read Aloud icon.
Note: The Adding a new Poodll Read Aloud page appears.
6. Type in a descriptive name for the activity in the Poodll Read Aloud textbox.
7. Type a description in the Description textbox (optional).
8. To keep the course page less cluttered, it is recommended that you leave Display description on course page unchecked.
9. Set the amount of time learners have to read the passage using the Time Limit drop-down menu. You can choose No time limit for skill-building and practice tasks.
10. Type in or copy the reading passage into the Reading Passage textbox.
11. Choose the Passage Language from the drop-down menu.
12. Choose the text-to-speech (TTS) voice from the TTS Voice drop-down menu. A variety of male and female voices are available in different languages and accents.
13. Choose the TTS Speed. Available options are Medium, Slow, and Extra Slow.
For example, if the reading passage contains the word their, the speech recognition engine might transcribe a student's pronunciation as they’re. To treat both as acceptable, enter the alternatives in the following format: their|they're
Note: Enter each set of alternatives on a separate line.
Note: The program does not accept multi-word phrases in this section.
15. The Pre-attempt instructions and Post-attempt instructions fields contain default text. You can edit these instructions if needed.
16. In the Target WPM (Words Per Minute) field, enter the desired reading speed. The default is 100 WPM, but this can be adjusted to suit learners' proficiency levels and the purpose of the activity. Learners must meet or exceed the target reading speed to receive full marks.
17. Select Can exit early if you want learners to be able to finish the activity before the time limit expires.
18. Select Enable Listen mode to allow learners to listen to the model reading before beginning the activity.
19. Select Enable Practice mode (Listen and Repeat) to allow learners to practise reading the passage one sentence at a time.
20. Select Enable Practice mode (Shadowing) to allow learners to read the passage aloud while listening to the model audio. This practice mode helps learners improve their pronunciation, intonation, and reading pace.
21. Use the Max. Attempts setting to specify the maximum number of attempts learners are allowed to complete the activity.
22. Expand the Advanced section.
23. In the Custom font field, enter the exact name of the font you want to use, if a specific font is required.
24. The Grade Calculation setting determines how the activity is graded in the gradebook. Choose from the available Normal or Strict grading options, depending on how you want scores to be calculated.
25. The Human/Machine Grading setting determines which score is sent to the grade book. The available options are Never use machine evaluation for grade, Use human or machine evaluation for grade, Always use machine evaluation for grade.
The Recording and AI options control how learners record their responses and how recordings are evaluated.
- Test their microphone before recording.
- Begin recording immediately when the activity opens.
- Upload a recording instead of recording directly in the activity.
27. To enable automatic transcription and evaluation of learner recordings, select Enable AI. We recommend that you do not use this feature until we receive more direction from the Government of Canada.
Leave the next four settings (Line Transcriber, Passage Transcriber, AWS Region and Days to keep file) as their default setting, as they are not used in Avenue. These settings are relevant when using Amazon Web Services, which is a cloud platform used to store apps and data.
28. If you wish to adjust the WPM score assigned by Read Aloud, choose Adjust by fixed amount from the WPM Adjust(AI) drop-down menu. Note that you can set this amount more accurately after the machine has graded the transcriptions and you have an estimate of the average number of mistakes the machine has made throughout the evaluation and grading process.
To ignore errors found by the program, choose Ignore all errors.
If you do not want to change the machine score, choose No adjustment.
The Post attempt options allow the teacher to link a Read Aloud activity to other activities such as reading comprehension questions, writing forums, or other pronunciation and speaking activities.
29. From the Link to next activity drop-down menu, select the activity learners should access after completing the Read Aloud activity.
30. From the Evaluation display drop-down menu, choose how learners' results will be displayed after the activity.
31. Expand the Grade section.
32. Set the Grade Type to Point (numeric) or Scale.
Note: If Point is chosen, you must specify a Maximum grade.
33. If grade categories have been created in the course, select the appropriate Grade category.
34. If applicable, enter a Grade to pass. This setting is available when the grade type is Point or Scale.
35. In the Grade Options, choose the grading calculation for the Read Aloud activity. If learners are allowed multiple attempts, you can chose the score of latest attempt, or the highest scoring attempt to be accounted for in their grade.
Settings in the Common module section are common to many Moodle activities and resources.
Availability controls whether the activity is visible to learners. This setting functions the same as the Show/Hide icons available when Edit mode is enabled on the course page
ID Number allows you to assign an identifier for advanced gradebook functions. This setting is not used in the LINC courseware.
36. Click Add restriction... to open the Add restriction window and configure the desired access restrictions.
The ePortfolio Artifact Settings section can be used to add keywords to the activity that will enhance the eportfolios.
37. Click on the Save and display button to save/update the activity or click the Save and return to course button.
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