Resources for Skip
Reske's Radio Scripts for English Language Learners http://bits.westhost.com/scripts |
Readability -
an online tool that allows you to get information about the reading
level of an web page or a Word document. |
| Word Frequency Text Profiler - an online tool for reviewing frequency usage of vocabulary items. I found it useful for highlighting possible candidates for editing or rewriting. http://www.edict.com.hk/textanalyser/ |
| OverLIB - "overLIB
is a JavaScript created to enhance websites with small popup information
boxes (like tooltips). I used this free
script for popup vocabulary definitions. http://www.bosrup.com/web/overlib/ |
Swapping
Style Sheets - "Use this script to allow visitors
to change a page style sheet on-the-fly, by clicking on a link in
the page.
The script works by switching the active style sheets. You can use
any number of style sheets, which are automatically detected by the
script." I used this script to allow visitor control over highlighted
radio scripts. |
Persistent
Layer (Dreamweaver
Extension) - this is a JavaScript that
floats "a layer on the screen so that it stays in place while a user
scrolls
the page.
It
has an
animation script that slides the layer into position." I used this
for the layer
holding the "dictionary.com" search box on each radio script page.
If you use Dreamweaver, you can get and integrate the script as a Dreamweaver
Extension. |
| Mouseover Articles - In "Interactive Scripts", there are blank highlighted spaces where articles are required. By mousing over these spaces, the correct articles appear. What is happening here is JavaScript for a "rollover image", where one image is replaced by another when you "rollover", or "mouseover". In Dreamweaver, the script is added automatically when you choose Insert > Interactive Images > Rollover Image. This behavior is available, with different instructions, in virtually all web authoring tools. The only thing I have done is to subsequently remove the "restore original image" behavior script. That way, when the correct article appears after the "mouseover", it stays put. |
Hot
Potatoes - the wonderful, powerful, and easy to use tool
for making various types
of interactive quizzes from the University of Victoria. Don't
leave home without it. "The Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications,
enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence,
crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide
Web. Hot Potatoes is not freeware, but it is free of charge for those
working for publicly-funded non-profit-making educational institutions,
who make their pages available on the web." |
| About
Movie Stills - to take stills from movies, I played a DVD version
on my computer. This requires a DVD player and software that allows
you
to take "snapshots". Both WinDVD (http://www.intervideo.com/)
and PowerDVD (http://www.gocyberlink.com/)
software programs will do this. The stills, which are captured
as Windows bitmaps (.bmp),
can be sized and converted to jpegs (.jpg) files with graphics programs,
such as Macromedia Fireworks or Adobe Photoshop. But,
"if
you're looking for a lean and mean graphics utility, IrfanView is
a top choice--and
the fact that
it's both free and a high-quality program makes it nearly irresistible."
(PC World) IrfanView works just fine in this situation. http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,5648,00.asp |
| About
Movie Clips - I used a shareware program called Flash
DVD Ripper (http://www.flashdvdripper.com) that allows
you to save clips or segments of a DVD movie and convert them into different
formats. I saved clips
in the MPEG (.mpg) format. You can use this utility free if your clips
are less than 5 minutes long. These files can then be ultra-compressed
using the free Windows
Media Encoder from Microsoft. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx |
Dictionary.com Search
Box - this is freely available and also contains a drop down
choice for Thesaurus.com as well as a web search. |
Original Source Material - Here are examples of original source material; in this case for Casablanca. Here is the original 1943 broadcast (in an MP3 audio file - 30 minutes long), and an original broadcast transcription (in a rich text file - 16 pages). These materials are readily available on the internet. A careful comparison would show where I have adapted and edited the transcript so that, in my view, it better serves the needs of English language learning. |
| Email
Address Encoder - Reduce spam mail from your website. Email
spammers can scan "websites in order to find
email addresses. What
they do is create computer programs, called 'bots',
that automatically search websites to find email addresses. Once they
find one, they copy it
and use it to send you junk email." The following site enables
you to encode your email so that people can see you email as normal,
but bots will see only encoding that they cannot read. http://www.addressmunger.com |
| Autorun.inf Editor - "Easily create the Autorun.inf file that allows programs on CD run automatically when the CD is inserted! Now the CDs you create can automatically display a web page, text file, navigate the user's web browser to a support web site, launch a setup program, and more." Just one of the free utilities from Karen Kenworthy. |
Where to find original radio broadcast scripts and audio on the Internet: |
| Copyright
Questions? - "Arguments
showing Old Time Radio Shows are not covered by any copyrights." http://www.radiolovers.com/copyrights.html |