[Xerte-dev] Re: Connector Pages

[Kemp Johnathan]

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?

 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.

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?

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.

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.

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!)

I can see the value in the connectors, but we need to make this easy.

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.

to quote from one of Alistair's postings

Up until now it has not been possible to set up easy alternative route ways
through a learning object.

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

· if somebody gets a question wrong you take them back to the relevant
content page to refresh their memory
· if you're interested in pursuing one case study you click here but
another case study you click there

but it could also be used in very sophisticated ways by

· 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.
· Connecting pages to illustrate alternative approaches to solving the same
problem
· connecting pages to provide walk-throughs of constructing a good essay
answer by giving choices about what to write next
· connecting pages to allow diagnosis of engine faults, hair and beauty
problems, customer service issues, cow diagnosis etc

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.

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.

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.

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’.

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".

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.

There are other tools for more advanced users.

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?

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.

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.

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.

If I don’t know what something does after playing around with it for a few
minutes, neither will a great many other people.

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.

Remember the mantra

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.

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?

Kind regards

Johnathan


On 24 April 2012 13:02, Julian Tenney <Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk>wrote:

> 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?
>
>
>
> 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?
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> I can see the value in the connectors, but we need to make this easy.
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> Can everyone play around with the connectors and can we have some debate
> about this please?
>
>
>
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