Student pairing and audio gap fill functionality arrives.

This completes our work on matching functionality available in other language labs, meaning that Schoolshape now offers all functionality available from hardware and local network solutions, but with the convenience of anywhere, anytime use and much more.

Student Pairing is available to audio and video language lab subscribers.  It enables you to pair students for speaking practice.  First select the relevant group on the home screen or student screen, and select 'Start Pairing' when students are online.  Then, you will be able to click on student names to immediately pair them for conversation practice.

Audio Gap Fill allows 'Repeat after me' and dialogue exercises.  They offer a better way of creating exercises that would have been solved using two cassette players in the old language labs.  When creating a new exercise, choose 'Audio Gap Fill' from the right-hand palette.  Hit the round 'record' button, record the first prompt and then click the square 'Stop' button.  You will see the wave form and a 'gap' appear for the students to record in.  Hit record again to create the second prompt.  When done, you may test the exercise from the student's point of view by selecting 'Student answer view'.  Schoolshape will play the first prompt, and then automatically start recording the student's response.  It will detect when the student has finished speaking, and play the next prompt automatically.  If background noise interferes with the automatic detection, the student can hit the stop button at any time to proceed to the next prompt.  They can also go back and re-record earlier sections if they wish.