NATIONAL LEARNSCOPE PROJECT (2004)
AN EXPLORATION INTO ONLINE VOICE TOOLS

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Troubleshooting Audio Problems

If you are not able to hear, or make yourself heard, the first step is to check that your sound card, microphone, and speakers are all working. The best way of checking this is to see if you can record and play back a message using the inbuilt Sound Recorder that ships with all Windows machines.

You can find Sound Recorder via the Start Menu in the bottom left corner. Navigate your way through Start > (All) Programs > Accessories > Entertainment > Sound Recorder. You should find something which looks like this:

Click on the RED button to begin recording. Record a short message and see if you can hear the message played back. If you can't, check the settings for your mic and speakers.

Checking Mic and Speaker Settings
To do this double click the little speaker icon in your system tray on the bottom right of your screen. You should now see something like this:

Make sure that the volume control and wave buttons are not muted, and that they are not set to zero. Now select options from the pull down menu and select properties. Tick the radio button alongside recording to bring up the audio properties dialog box for your microphone. It looks like this:

Make sure the microphone channel is selected (ticked), and that the volume control for the microphone is not set at zero.

Now go back and try the Sound Recorder test again, and hopefully your problem will be solved. If you still can't record and hear a sound there is something adrift with your sound card, mic, speakers, or mic or speaker inputs.


Wimba Voice Direct

If you are not able to use any Wimba tool go to http://www.wimba.com/guest/diagnostic/main and try the diagnostic test there.

The Wimba Voice Direct tool is very simple to use. It looks like this:

To speak you click on the hand icon, and a mic symbol should appear alongside your name, and the yellow bar will turn green and display the word speaking:

When you have finished speaking, click the X in the circle. This releases the mic for the next person to speak. Note: NO ONE ELSE CAN SPEAK UNTIL YOU RELEASE THE MIC BY CLICKING ON THE X!!!!

You can also use Voice Direct as a normal text chat. Type text in the field at the bottom of the screen and hit enter. Your text comments will now be visible to all in the chat room.

 

 

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