<div class="gmail_extra"><font color="#3366ff">Why have the author set ‘mode’? What’s the point of this, and if we need it can we not detect it? What happens if I forget to set it back? Couldn’t this be a global setting?</font><br>
<br> Mode is there to help the author by providing additional information that can help them to set up the connections. It also displays error messages to them when they are testing the connections to ensure they have everything set up correctly. In addition since we are using page IDs, for reasons discussed in earlier emails it allows the outputting of a html page to the clipboard that lists all the pages in the project giving their page number, page name, page ID and whether the page has a development mode and if so what it is set at. In principle you could have a global setting and not set it on a page by page basis.</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><font color="#3366ff">With the connector pages, do we need to have the options for back / next buttons stuff on each page, or are there global / automatic settings we could make?</font></div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
The Connector pages default to hiding the navigation
on the premise that the intention of the page is to restrict the learner to a number of specific choices. When the learner makes their choice then the navigation is automatically returned to whatever it was set at when the Connector page opened and before it hid the navigation. Each of the button options can however be changed by the author on a page by page basis. With some situations you could have a situation in which the author would want to provide a brief period of limited navigation and this is supported by pages like the MCQ Connector. Imagine asking a question that tests a learners understanding. You could have three options 1 and 2 are both wrong answers that lead to an ordinary page, that is one of a short sequence of ordinary pages. Each sequence explores the nature of the mis-understanding and at the end of the sequence returns them to the main project flow. The third answer just connects directly to the page that marks the continuation of the project flow. Whist the learner is in the sequence they are offered only the back and next buttons so that they complete the sequence that will help them to clarify their understanding. At the end of each of the two sequences of ordinary pages a redirector connector resets the navigation by default and directs them back to the main project flow.</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">
<font color="#3366ff">It is a pain when buttons are turned off to quickly get to the page I want to get to – so If I add a new page, I can’t navigate to it to check it’s how I want it, because the buttons suddenly disappear.</font>
<br>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">I can appreciate your frustration. If the Connector page is not the first page in your project then the quickest way to get to your page would be to use the TOC, Would this not resolve the problem? (Which reminds me we still need to look at how to get the xml name value into the TOC in desktop xerte!)</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br><font color="#3366ff">I can see the value in the connectors, but we need to make this easy.</font><br><br> It is possible to remove functionality from the Connector pages so as to provide the Author with fewer choices, but this in turn could be frustrating to those authors who would want that level of control. Judging by Alistair's comments about the connector pages he can see the point of them as well. </div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">to quote from one of Alistair's postings</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><font color="#009900">Up until now it has not been possible to set up easy alternative route ways through a learning object.<br>
<br>When these new pages are in place in the main Xerte toolkits build you will have the opportunity to create learning objects that take learners on different routes according to either their interests or their abilities. This could be used in a fairly simple way, for example<br>
<br>· if somebody gets a question wrong you take them back to the relevant content page to refresh their memory<br>· if you're interested in pursuing one case study you click here but another case study you click there<br>
<br>but it could also be used in very sophisticated ways by <br><br>· connecting several of these pages together allowing an "adventure game scenario” where choices determine subsequent choices - something that can be excellent for problem based learning.<br>
· Connecting pages to illustrate alternative approaches to solving the same problem <br>· connecting pages to provide walk-throughs of constructing a good essay answer by giving choices about what to write next<br>
· connecting pages to allow diagnosis of engine faults, hair and beauty problems, customer service issues, cow diagnosis etc</font></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br>
</div><div class="gmail_extra">Creating the more sophisticated projects is going to take someone who does not fit into the ‘f*ckwit' category. To make real use of the Connector pages is going to take planning of the project sequence and an understanding of how to make the best use of the Connector pages. In particular the Tab Nav Connector and the Scenario connector are going to take some familiarisation before the Author is able to make the most out of them. I have used the page wizard version of the Tab Nav Connector page to build a project that supported none-technical users in problems solving basic PC / Network problems for weekend work when no ICT department staff were available. It used a lot of wink animations as illustrations and included documentation in flash paper format. Projects like that can be useful but need planning. This opens up the use of XOT as a tool for students to use in the solution of exercises. They get to define the structure of the solution, the pages define how they will chunk the information, the connections defining the relationship between the pages and the logic of the solution, the media resources they need to create etc.</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">There is a return on the planning that a more complex learning object may take and that lies in the enhanced learning experience of the end user learner. There have been discussions in other postings about the use of Powerpoint. There may be a lot of Powerpoint material out there, but how engaging is it to the learner? Once you have the ability to alter the learning experience based on the learners choice a lot of potential opens up to challenge the learner, to allow them to take chances, make mistakes and learn by them.</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><font color="#3366ff">Seriously, when we built toolkits the mantra in the office was (honestly) ‘f*ckwit simple’. It meant that we created tools that create relatively simple content. But it means people can use it. That guiding principle has got us a long way, and means that people can easily create content – that is what people like about toolkits. We need to sanity check all the new features against that mantra. If it isn’t ‘f*ckwit simple’ it may belong in another tool. </font><br>
<br> <font color="#3366ff">Even if people don’t use the more advanced features, seeing them, and realising they don’t know what to do with them undermines the simplicity and usability elsewhere – I think people should very quickly feel at home with all the functionality, and not feel that only a subset of it is appropriate for them: by implication those users feel, well, a bit like f*ckwits, and that’s not what we want to say. We want to say ‘this is easy’ and we want people to think ’this is brilliant, I can do this’. </font><br>
<br> I went to an Accordion concert the other day. The performer was a former world champion and she was unbelievable. Some people in the audience knew they would never play as well as her, but found the experience inspirational. There were some others who made comments like "I might as well give up now". </div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">If you are worried about putting people off XOT then change the menu system. Have an "advanced" section and put the Connectors in that. Tell people new to XOT that not only is it easy to use but that it can grow with you as you gain in experience. That way you keep the Gazelles on board (the ones that will panic at the first sign of danger) and you also add kudos to an already excellent product by providing it with the means to deliver even more engaging learning objects.</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">
<font color="#3366ff">There are other tools for more advanced users.</font>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><font color="#3366ff"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_extra">But wouldn't it be nice for those who have spent time building up XOT resources to be able to continue using their preferred tool whilst also being able to take their learning objects up a level? </div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">The Connector pages are not the first pages to be challenging to users. Fay was only pointing out a few weeks ago how it would be useful to provide some guidelines for how to use the Interactive Diagram page. I have to admit I have never been able to get the JMOL page working, or the Mapstraction page. </div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br><font color="#3366ff">What is display text? This is another one that we need to have a think about: I’m not sure what it does having just played around with it for a few minutes. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">Display text is all the text that is page specific but not content specific i.e. its the button labels, the "question 2 of 8" etc. For pages with not a lot of display text the languages flag works OK. But where you have a lot of display text then I felt it was less confusing to keep it in its own form. You don't need to change a word of it if you don't want to. However I remember Inge commenting on how it would be useful to be able to modify the display text to suit different target audiences or perhaps just to create a little difference between two or three instances of the same page. We didn't use to have display text because it was buried in the rlm code. But that is incompatible with internationalisation.</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">
<font color="#3366ff">If I don’t know what something does after playing around with it for a few minutes, neither will a great many other people.</font>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">I felt the same about the pages I struggled to understand. Perhaps this just indicates an opportunity for providing a feature in Xerte that lets you link a support document to a page type to help the Author. </div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><font color="#3366ff">Remember the mantra</font><br>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">What is simple is relative to the individual. Adding a choice of transitions to a page that displays a graphic, may make things more complicated, but there are Authors out there who would love it [Hi Ron :-) ], whilst others might just find it confusing. </div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">I would not want you to lose one XOT user because they feared that XOT was to hard for them. Nor would I want you to lose any XOT user because they felt limited by what they could achieve using it. The other side of the coin are the learners using the XOT learning objects. For every author there must be many students who will use their learning objects. If XOT makes it possible to engage those students in new ways that has to be a good thing?</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">Kind regards</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">Johnathan</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 24 April 2012 13:02, Julian Tenney <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Julian.Tenney@nottingham.ac.uk" target="_blank">Julian.Tenney@nottingham.ac.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-GB" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div><p class="MsoNormal">Why have the author set ‘mode’? What’s the point of this, and if we need it can we not detect it? What happens if I forget to set it back? Couldn’t this be a global setting?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">With the connector pages, do we need to have the options for back / next buttons stuff on each page, or are there global / automatic settings we could make?</p><p class="MsoNormal">
</p><p class="MsoNormal">It is a pain when buttons are turned off to quickly get to the page I want to get to – so If I add a new page, I can’t navigate to it to check it’s how I want it, because the buttons suddenly disappear.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">I can see the value in the connectors, but we need to make this easy.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Seriously, when we built toolkits the mantra in the office was (honestly) ‘f*ckwit simple’. It meant that we created tools that create relatively simple content. But it means people can use it. That guiding principle has got us a long way, and means that people can easily create content – that is what people like about toolkits. We need to sanity check all the new features against that mantra. If it isn’t ‘f*ckwit simple’ it may belong in another tool. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Even if people don’t use the more advanced features, seeing them, and realising they don’t know what to do with them undermines the simplicity and usability elsewhere – I think people should very quickly feel at home with all the functionality, and not feel that only a subset of it is appropriate for them: by implication those users feel, well, a bit like f*ckwits, and that’s not what we want to say. We want to say ‘this is easy’ and we want people to think ’this is brilliant, I can do this’. There are other tools for more advanced users.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">What is display text? This is another one that we need to have a think about: I’m not sure what it does having just played around with it for a few minutes. If I don’t know what something does after playing around with it for a few minutes, neither will a great many other people. Remember the mantra.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Can everyone play around with the connectors and can we have some debate about this please?</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p></div><br>
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