Web Audio Lab is a program designed to provide programmed input to students, then let them record their voices, listen to themselves, check themselves with a model, and finally submit their recordings to their teacher. This tutorial explains how to get started using the program and some of the controls and options available to student users. For answers to more questions, try the FAQ.

For more detail on any of these topics, see the help file included with the program. Just press "help" on the program controller.

Registration

• Go to http://wal.lrc.cornell.edu on any browser. Click on "click here" on the bottom line " If you are a student and do not have an account, click here to register."
• Fill in the form. If you do not have a special class name, just enter your first name for "Nickname." For email, enter your complete email address, including "@cornell.edu." Do not use your Kerberos email password. Choose another password, of at least 6 characters.
• Select your course and section and click on "Register and Enroll in Courses."
• Your password will be sent to your email account.

Startup

• If you are booted into Windows on the lab computers, Russian users should choose the Russian login, all others choose Noyes.
• Select the WAL icon in the dock or from the Start menu->Programs.
• If you are using the CD on your own machine, you should make a new folder on your hard drive and copy the CD contents to it. Then double-click on the "start" icon.

User Setup

• Click on the "Setup (user name, etc.)."
• In Step 1, select a drive you can write to - not your CD drive. On the computers in the lab this has to be set to either "Save Files Here" or "T:", whichever appears in the drop down menu.
• Enter your user name in Step 2 and your password in step 3. If you have not yet registered, you need to register at http://wal.lrc.cornell.edu/register. The FTP and History information should already be correctly entered.
• Press the "Test FTP Connection" button to ensure that your password and user name are entered correctly to be able to upload your recordings. Do this before making any recordings.
• Click on "Sound Setup" at the top of the setup screen. Typically no adjustments are necessary here, but click on "Record," say something then "Play." You voice should be clear and at adequate volume. If you need to make adjustments to your sound settings, follow these instructions.
• Click on "Done." You have finished setup and will be able to record and submit your recordings to your teacher.

Selecting and running an exercise

• The controller window in the left top corner allows you to select a lesson and an exercise within that lesson. When you do this and press "Go" an exercise will automatically start.
• During a lesson, the program may pause to allow you to read the screen or prepare yourself to record. Press "Go On" to continue. The "Go On" button will show a glowing green line around it when it is waiting. You may also press "return" on the keyboard.

Oval Buttons

• There are three rows of oval buttons. These allow you to control the flow of items within this exercise, compare your recordings to a model (in some cases), and listen to your recordings.
• You can click on any of the top row of buttons to go to that part of the exercise. The program will continue from that point and will play immediately. The current question is always highlighted. This row of buttons is your controller within an exercise.
• The second, middle row of ovals allows you to compare your recording to the model recording. Clicking on any of these will play first your recording, then the corresponding model recording (if available). It will play that question only.
• The third, bottom row of ovals plays all your recordings, starting with the one you click on.

Program Controls

• On-screen (mouse) controls
  Besides the ovals, you have a variety of on-screen and keyboard controls over program operation. In the top-left control box, you can select a lesson and exercise, then press "Go" to begin that exercise. During an exercise you can click on "Refresh" to start that exercise over again.
  Below the control box are the font size and pause length controllers. The font size controls the font size of all text on the screen (some letters may appear to be text but are actually graphics). The pause length allows you to control the amount of time you are given to make your recording. The course programmer has decided on a suggested amount of time, which is proportional to the model (if there is one). You may then change that amount of time with the pause length controller, making it longer (above 100%) or shorter. If you turn recording off (see below) and reduce the pause length to zero, you can listen only, without any pause for recording.
  Above the lines of ovals are some transport control buttons. The first three on the left allow you to quickly move back among questions. The leftmost goes back to the first question, the beginning of the exercise. The next goes back two questions from the current position (these may be lines of a dialog, for example) and the third goes back to the previous one. These are useful for quickly reviewing the previous question or dialog line.
  The pause and play buttons control the playback sound within the current question.
  During playback, you can also control the sound by clicking on the blue bar. For a longer passage, this allows you to quickly move to different parts, like fast forward and rewind, within the one listening passage. Pause and clicking on the bar do not operate during recording.
• Keyboard controls
  The functions of the "pause" and "play" buttons can also be achieved by pressing the space bar. Press it once to pause, then again to resume play. Pressing return is like the "Go On" button. The left and right arrow keys go forward and back a question (control arrow to go two questions). The up and down keyboard arrow buttons will take you to the next or previous exercise or lesson. To restart the current question, press "Del"
• Review, never-stop and record off modes
  Generally an exercise moves along fairly quickly, so you can do your work efficiently. When you are done, you may want to check your work. One way to do that is to press one of the middle line of red ovals. That will let you compare your recording to the model.
  If you want to redo some of your recordings without redoing the whole exercise, you may want to go into review mode. Click this box in the Options Panel. This puts in a stop before each listening and recording, so that you will not have to worry about the program going ahead and rerecording a response you did not want to erase. Note, however, that even beginning an already-done recording will erase that recording. The program expects you to record a new response.
  Alternatively, if you are redoing a whole exercise and do not need any of the pauses, you may want to select "never stop."
  If you want to review an exercise without changing any of your recordings, you may want to click on "recording off."
• Submitting
  When you have completed an exercise and are satisfied with your recordings, you should "submit" your recordings. Press the "Submit" button on the main controller. This compresses your audio recordings in the current exercise and sends them to a server. They are still stored on your computer also, until you delete them. Recordings on lab machines may be deleted by other users or the lab systems. Note that "submit" sends only the current (on-screen) exercise. You need to submit separately for each exercise, but you may continue listening and recording a different exercise while you submit. You can record an item as many times as you like; only the version that is recorded when you submit will be available to your teacher. You can also submit more than once, but the teacher will see the submission date/time of your last submission of that exercise.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can I submit more than once?
   Yes, you can submit your recordings more than once. Only the most recently submitted version of each question will be saved.
2. Are my recordings always saved?
   Yes, your recordings are always saved in the "T:" drive or in the "Save Files Here" drive (as long as you've chosen one of those drives in Setup User Name), in a folder called aaa_learners, where aaa is the three letter code for your WAL course. Inside that folder will be a folder for each user of that course on that machine. This means that if the computer or WAL program quits suddenly or freezes, you can restart the machine or WAL and your recordings will still be there. However, when those drives are full the content will be erased; consequently, you cannot depend on files staying in the machine at the Language Center. On your own computer, they will always be there. On the other hand, when you quit WAL, you are asked if you want to erase your recordings. If you don't want your recordings sitting on public machines, just respond "YES" to the question "DELETE THEM NOW?" and your recordings will be deleted from the computer.
3. What should I do if testing the FTP connection fails?
   Make sure you have an active internet connection, test this by opening a website. Have you registered and enrolled in the WAL course you're using? If so, make sure you're using the correct user name and password. If you've forgotten your password, you can request it be reset from the Login page.
4. What should I do if I can't submit?
   Did you successfully test your FTP connection when you opened WAL? You should do this every time you use the program, before you make any recordings, to make sure you can connect to the server. If you cannot successfully test your FTP connection then you will not be able to submit recordings.
5. When running in Mac (not Windows XP), my "Test FTP" is successful, but submitting my files fails. Why?
   This problem is unique to the mac OS. If you're having trouble submitting, keep trying! You may have to submit a few times before it succeeds. If you successfully tested your FTP connection then you should be able to submit.
6. I can't hear my recordings. What's wrong?
   Did you make a test recording in the Setup > Sound Setup section when you opened WAL? You should always do that before making any recordings to make sure your microphone is able to pick up your voice clearly. Make sure the Mute button on your headset cable is not on and that the volume wheel is turned up. Is the computer volume muted? If all settings appear to be correct and you still can't hear your recording, close WAL then unplug the USB headset from the back of the computer, then plug the headset back in and reopen WAL. This will re-enable the headset.

Last Updated: June 2008

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