Hear and Respond Lesson Setup

Hear and Respond setup requires an audio story (usually thirty seconds to a couple of minutes long), and text annotations that attach to places within the story. These lessons are setup using the data panel on the right side of the ACORNS window frames. On the top of the panel, there is a secondary toolbar used to customize the lesson. Click here for a detailed description.

Step 1: Load your Story

If you are ready to record, follow the instructions on the Recording page. Otherwise,if you want to use pre-recorded audio, follow the instructions on the File Management page.

Step 2: Attach your Annotations

After you load your story, you will see the sound represented by a wavy line. The first step is to select a piece of the audio, to which you will attach a text annotation.

Selecting a portion of a sound recording

The buttons around the sound panel provide limited sound editing capabilities. Many of these work by first selecting the portion of interest. This procedure is used consistently in this program, so it is a good idea to get familiar with how it is done. First, depress your mouse at a starting point and drag is over the desired portion of a recording. If you click the play back button () you will hear the audio corresponding to the section of the sound wave that you select.

The picture below shows a portion of the panel that is selected. Notice that the highlighted area is shaded. If you click the mouse again the selection is released.

Use the select and play technique to find a word that you want to annotate. Type the text in the text field at the bottom of the sound panel and then click the add icon () and the annotation will appear. If you want to modify the text, click within the annotatation area; the current annotaion text then will display in the text field. Modify it as you with and then click on the edit icon (). To delete one or more annotations, select a portion of the sound that contains the annotations you want to delete and then click on the delete icon (). Using these commands will enable you to annotate the entire story with the corresponding words that apply. This procedure is described in more detail in the Annotation Controls page.

Step 4: Execute the lesson

Once you have loaded your audio and annotated it with a translation, you are ready to execute the lesson. To execute, click on the icon that looks like a lightning bolt ().

Annotation Panel Buttons and Controls

while annotating, if you make a mistake, error messages display in red at the bottom of the panel. Sometimes ACORNS acknowledges what it is doing by displaying a message in this area. The Errors page describes the kind of messages that can display.

While you are setting up a Story Book lesson, there are a series of buttons to assist. As you move your mouse over the various buttons, you will see a short description of the component. This can help if you forget what a particular component does. We have help pages that describe the operation of of the various buttons. You can click on the image links below to learn how these buttons and controls work.

Recording Buttons
File Control Buttons
Edit Buttons
Recording Speed and Volume Control Buttons
Zoom Control Buttons
Selection Control Buttons
Annotation Controls
Undo and Redo

Note: Recovering from errors

If you make a mistake, ACORNS can help you recover. For example if you inadvertantly delete part of an audio, click on the undo icon on the ACORNS toolbar. The deleted portion will return. The undo operation can also recover from changes you make. After undoing, the redo button becomes active. You can redo an operation if you change your mind and want the change to take effect after all.

Secondary toolbar options

At the top of the setup panel, there is a secondary toolbar as shown in the picture below. This toolbar contains a series of grapic components and we will describe the purpose of each.
When you click the help button, this page displays. The title you gave to this lesson when it was created appears to the right of the help button
All ACORNS lessons can have multiple layers; each Story Book lesson layer has separate translation. This feature can be useful to create lessons with multiple dialects. By switching between layers, the student can learn each dialects using the same lesson. The slider on the control bar enables you to set up a lesson with multiple layers. Simply click on the slider to move to the desired layer. The layer numbers are numbered as shown on the picture to the left.
This control enables you to insert a background picture to the lesson. This gives you more control as to how the lesson looks when it executes.
These controls allow you to control background and text colors that are used when the lesson executes. If you click either of the two left buttons, you will see a color palette display; simply click the color you want and then click OK. The button with the capital A is for the text color and the one with the three boxes and hand is for the background color.
The font size drop down menu enables you to choose how big the text is when it displays while the lesson executes. Either pick a size from the selection or enter your own.
The justify buttons enable you to ether center or left justify the text while the story plays. By default the text is left justified. When you click on one of these buttons it will display depressed to indicate that the option is active. The justification applies to a active lesson layer.

The link button allows you to connect this lesson with another lesson in the file. Clicking on this button causes a dialog window to appear. Enter the name of the lesson you want to link to. The name field is one of the header fields that you fill in when you create a lesson. (You can modify it later if you didn't.) It shows in the lesson display area on the left of the ACORNS application frame. After you click OK to the link dialog, the name of the linked lesson will show in blue on the secondary toolbar.