Hello All,
We have made a number of updates to the site. Here are a few of them for your reference:
We hope you like the improvements.
Best regards,
Chad
Thanks for the updates. I like the new look and that you can see the points awarded after each entry. I wanted to report a couple of problems I had when I checked it out:
1) Words Spoken to Printed didn't load--tried it twice.
2) Some prosody and co-articulation problems in the new vocab game: I tried Level 7 and found:
the prosody off in the definition of the word "pass": "to change or go by--more emphasis should be on the "by," otherwise it sounds like "to go by" as in to base a judment on, as in, "it's the only thing I have to go by."
and
the definition of "bill" sounded to me like "to submit malistic things." I don't know what it was meant to say.
Thanks for the updates and the update on the updates!~
--Leslie
Leslie~
Re: #1. I see what you mean. I have reported it, and the programmers will look in to the problem.
Re: #2. The new vocabulary game, Descriptor, uses text-to-speech technology. As good as computer-generated speech is these days, I agree that when there cab be issues and they are nearly all related to prosody. Still, computerized messages are everywhere. Our cars even talk to us these days! So, we like the idea of having one of the games use computer-generated speech. We have found that a small adjustment in the text of a definition often improves the intelligibility of the computer voice.
We'll track definitions that people think sound "off" and then we can make those adjustments when we have a "batch" of them. I've made note of the issues you mentioned. The definition that you had trouble understanding for "bill" was <to submit a list of charges>.
Thanks so much for the feedback and for helping us with continuous improvement!
Sandie
Dear All,
In our continued efforts to meet your needs, we have just released another series of improvements to Lexercise. We hope you enjoy them!
Best regards,
Chad
Chad Myers
CEO, Mind InFormation
+1 888-603-1788
www.lexercise.com
Dear All,
We've been busy making improvements to the site.
We've made a number of behind-the-scenes improvements, but the ones you can readily see are:
Best regards,
Chad
Dear All,
While performing some routine updates to the site over the last half hour or so, we had a little trouble. Therefore, if you or your clients were on the site or trying to get on the site and had troubles, this is the reason.
We do everything we can to prevent this sort of thing from happening, but sometimes there are unforeseen problems. We very much apologize for any inconvenience.
Sincerely,
Chad
Dear All,
We have made an important update to the system.
Did you know that parents and clinicians get an automatic email every time the child completes his/her daily games? The system sends these automatic emails to the clinician at the email that the clinician uses to log in to Lexercise and to the parent at the email the clinician has recorded on the client registration page.
We have recently improved the content of these automatic emails to include a list of the child's specific error words from the game Isolator, as well and from the game Descriptor, along with links to explicit directions for how to use "table-top" activities to clarify these error words. This kind of feedback allows the Lexercise games to be used in a "blended learning" system, with the potential for coordinated online and face-to-face practice. We hope you find this function useful and fun to use.
In the process of this improvement, a bug crept in to the automatic email reports of the child's accuracy so all accuracy is mistakenly being reported as 0%. Our programmer is working to fix this. Meanwhile, as always, clinicians have access to their clients' correct accuracy data under "Reports" on their Clients' Page.
TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS
Best regards,
Chad
Dear All,
With more and more users now logging into Lexercise, we are getting slower-than-expected webpage load times. This has been going on for several days now. Our programmers are looking into the situation, and we hope to have it rectified just as soon as possible.
We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
Best regards,
Chad
Dear All,
We have found the problem for the slower-than-expected webpage load times. It is the combination of many new users and some inefficient code on the application that sends the error words email. To speed up page loading time, we have temporarily turned off the error word email while we fix the code. We expect the error word email application to be back up and running on Monday.
We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience as we grow to accommodate new users.
Best regards,
Chad
Dear Lexercise Clinicians,
It seems I unknowingly told a fib.
The programmers ran into a snag in fixing the code on the error words email. It's going to be a little more complicated to fix than anticipated. However, they assure me that it will be back up and running early next week.
I apologize for the delay and appreciate your patience and understanding.
Best regards,
Chad
Dear Lexercise Clinicians,
The error words email is now functional. The code for it was cleaned up and should not slow down the site when there is a lot of traffic.
Thank you for your patience.
Best,
Chad