Moodle Nanogong Module
About two months ago I started playing with the Nanogong Module for Moodle. Nanogong is a part of the Gong Project and is a Java based audio recorder that integrates with Moodle. It worked OK in 1.8 but when I upgraded to 1.9 everything went south. Over the last few weeks the developers, the "Hong Kong University of Science and Technology", have done a lot of work on the module and just recently made the module Open Source. I upgraded to version 3.1 last night and things seem to be working quite well now.
So what is the Nanogong Module? It is a voice recording module that allows Moodle users to record their voices directly into a web page. During recording and playback each user can speed up and slow down the audio. The voice quality is excellent and provides a wonderful platform for use with language students. Nanogong has three components within Moodle, the module itself that provides an activity similar to an assignment where each student is asked to read some text in a description box and then to record that text in the chosen language. Once the recordings are uploaded into Moodle the teacher can listen to them and then leave text comments for the student regarding their effort. The other components in nanogong are a filter that will automatically trigger the player when the nanogong file type is found and a modification to the html editor that allows recordings to occur on any page that uses the html editor. With the html editor modifications the teacher can not only leave text comments for students but can now leave audio comments.
Yesterday I did a training session on the Nanogong module with about a dozen teachers, most of the language teachers. The response to the training was just fabulous. The teachers were incredibly excited about the ability to have students record their own voices at home and then they could also listen to the recordings at home as well. It will really give teachers the opportunity to listen more to all of their language students. The html editor addition was also a big hit. The idea of audio based forums for asynchronous communications with students from other countries was probably one of the most popular concepts. The training was so successful that at 7:00 PM last night I received an email from a teacher that was working on building Nanogong activities and was having a problem. When I asked her if she was at home or at school she told me that she was sitting in her car in front of the school using the schools wireless connection to work on her Nanogong activities. She had come up to the school to run and was so excited that she worked on Nanogong instead. That is just totally awesome! At this point, I would highly recommend this module to anybody that wants to record directly into Moodle. The recorder looks like the image below:
Delicious
Digg
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiTrackback URL for this post:
http://orwinconsulting.com/trackback/30
May 12, 2010 - 5:04pm
#2
Thanks David
Thanks for the update David. As soon as I get a minute I will add the new version to my site and test it out. I know there are a few issues that need to be worked out but I think they may be related to how the assignment module filter strips out the javascript code. I posted in the forums a while back but haven't received any bites on my questions.
March 10, 2010 - 3:56am
#3
teacher can not see the students' messages
Hi, I want to use nanogong on my moodle. the version of my moodle is 1.9.7. I found patch for 1.9.5 and installed it. But still I have problems. I can record sound and listen when I sing into my account. But when I login to the system as a tacher to listen the students' messages, there arent any messages. Is this because of the version of my mooode? If so, do you think to make a patch for upper version of moodles?
March 13, 2010 - 6:10pm
#4
Nanogong issues, teacher can't see student messages
Hi eda,
- There are a number of things that could be causing you difficulty.
- Are you using the Nanogong activity? Make sure that when you test the module that you are using a student account then logging out and back in as the teacher. The default Nanogong permissions don't allow teachers to record to the activity until students have responded and then the teacher could leave an audio based comment.
- You need to make sure the actual audio files are actually getting loaded to the server. If you get error messages about "Failed to establish connection to the server" then the odds are that the file didn't make it to the server.
Let me know what you find out or post a more detailed message and I can take a look. On the other hand, <shameless plug> you could hire me to take a look as well ;-) </shameless plug>
January 8, 2010 - 7:54am
#5
V194 patch
We're trying to edit weblib.php to get this to work.
Suggestion: might the developers provide a patch for V1.9.4?
March 13, 2010 - 5:59pm
#6
Re: V194 patch
Hi seaghan,
I just did a new blog post describing how to change your weblib.php file so the Nanogong html editor button will work in versions beyond 1.92. You can read the post at: http://orwinconsulting.com/blogs/randy-orwin/making-nanogong-html-editor.... Remeber that the weblib patch only works to add the ability to use the Nanogong recorder on any page that has the html editor. Are you having other problems with the Nanogong activity module?
May 13, 2009 - 10:56pm
#7
Nanogong on 1.93
Lam,
Unfortunately I am not much of a coder. I know enough to be dangerous. I will test it out on a 1.94 box and see if I can get it to work.
May 13, 2009 - 1:46am
#8
My moodle is V1.93 so the
My moodle is V1.93 so the Nanogong has not worked. It only support moodle V1.92.
Could you please update the code.
Thanks,
Hi there,You may be interested to know that we have just released a new version of NanoGong, version 4.As you probably know, NanoGong is a popular open source solution for handling the voice on the web, both by itself and as a component of a Learning Management System (LMS), particularly Moodle. There have been more than 4,000 genuine downloads of NanoGong from our server to date, with about 80% of downloads for use with Moodle.NanoGong version 4 has the following new features related to Moodle: * Support for most recent versions of Moodle (prior to Moodle version 2.0) * Support for unlimited NanoGong messages on one page in Moodle * Teachers can control the maximum voice recording duration within the NanoGong Moodle activity control * Moodle grades are now correctly linked in the NanoGong activity module * You can now backup/restore a NanoGong activity using the standard Moodle backup/restore feature * Italian, German and Spanish language packs added (thanks to Francesco Scolastra, Joachim Vogelgesang, Detlef Anschlag and Enrique Robredo)
New features related to using NanoGong by itself as well as within Moodle: * A 'pause' feature and a volume level display has been added to the NanoGong playback/record functionality * Improved operation in Mac environments (thanks to Matthew Bockol) * Several bug fixes/other fixes for improved performance
Updated information about NanoGong, including demonstrations and downloads, is available at the NanoGong web site:http://gong.ust.hk/nanogong
Here is a brief summary of the main NanoGong features, both old and new. NanoGong and Moodle Integration ( http://gong.ust.hk/nanogong/moodle.html )NanoGong 4, the newly released version of the applet, has been further integrated into Moodle. You can put voice messages almostanywhere, such as in assignments, forums and quizzes in Moodle.Using NanoGong with Moodle: * Any user can create audio content using a specially extended HTML editor * Students can submit multiple voice messages to their teachers using the NanoGong Moodle activity (messages can then be graded by teachers) * Students can slow down or speed up the speed of the voice recording, or jump to any position in time in the recording * NanoGong activities can be backed up/restored using the Moodle backup/restore feature The NanoGong Applet ( http://gong.ust.hk/nanogong/info_applet.html )NanoGong 4 can also be used as a simple applet in a web page (without Moodle) to let people * record their voice * play it back, at different speeds if desired * save the recording to the local hard disk, preserving any changes in speed, if desired * send the recording to an arbitrary web siteIf NanoGong is used by itself it doesn't need any complicated setup procedure, and doesn't require a special server of any kind.NanoGong works over both unsecure (http) and secure (https) connections. Try out NanoGong 4You can try NanoGong 4 at the NanoGong website: * Try out the NanoGong 4 applet by itself: http://gong.ust.hk/nanogong/try.php * Try out NanoGong 4 in Moodle: http://gong.ust.hk/moodle * Try some more advanced use of NanoGong, which uses special web page programming: http://gong.ust.hk/nanogong/nanogong_api.html Download NanoGong 4NanoGong and the Moodle integration code remain open source. You are welcome to download it by submitting the request form here:http://gong.ust.hk/nanogong/downloads_form.htmlThanks a lot!Dr. David Rossiter and Gibson LamThe Gong projecthttp://gong.ust.hk andhttp://gong.ust.hk/nanogong