FW: [Xerte] structuring LO's needing a topic hierarchy

Tue Apr 27 13:31:26 BST 2010

Thanks for the screenshots.

Who’s going to build us one then?

;-)

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Peter Snowball
Sent: 27 April 2010 13:28
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: Re: FW: [Xerte] structuring LO's needing a topic hierarchy

A menu wizard or wizards for page / external RLO navigation would be a tremendous asset to Xerte. 

In a recently completed project we created a "menu" rlo that linked to pages within the menu RlO and also hyperlinks to the index htm of another three rlos.  (see attached screen shot) It was a copy (using buttons) of the Ispring / Articulate std power point to flash interface.  

We have been advised to have menus visible at all times so users can navigate with one click to where they want to go and back to where they have come from.  Ispring cannot do this but Xerte can.  Also Ispring cannot create a frame and have genuine nested learning sequence.   The problem with the the current TOC is that it is not visible, is a pop up, three clicks and only shows the top level .  See attached screen shot of Ispring navigator  - always visible, content is one click away, highlights where you are in the rlo, uses scroll bars and pretends to show nested content but in fact shows slides (pages) sequentllty. 

One option worth considering perhaps is to have  options on how the TOC operates and displays eg : always visible (left or right)  - and shows levels as expandable tree.
Say looping through the XML to find the nested pages.

myPageXML = Icon.XMLElement.getChildByName(myPageName);   ???

As an alternative one could populate some thing like an accordion navigator with all levels displayed and a forward and back button - without disturbing the basic linear navigation of the player.  While buttons worked fine on our menu we were on the verge of running out of stage space for buttons on rlos and will need something like an accordion navigator for the current RLOs we are developing.

Peter Snowball
Department of Economic Development
Tasmania

On 27/04/2010 6:41 PM, Julian Tenney wrote: 

Could do it as a page type in the main template, 'Menu' that would take options either as urls or as page names.

Options could be presented using a variety of controls: radio buttons; combo box, buttons, maybe hotspots...

I'm not sure how to handle the interface considerations. I must say I do like the idea of keeping the router separate from the content. However you do it, there will always be someone who wants to route at a different level. Ultimately, everything is linear, it's granularity that is the consideration. If you want all the routing options, then you might have to make very granular content, but that way the content stays separate from the navigation.

-----Original Message-----
From: johnathan.kemp at ntlworld.com [mailto:johnathan.kemp at ntlworld.com] 
Sent: 26 April 2010 20:27
To: Xerte discussion list
Cc: Julian Tenney
Subject: RE: [Xerte] structuring LO's needing a topic hierarchy

A router template sounds like a good idea. It could be really useful to be able to create a number of separate learning objects and to then be able to combine them into a variety of different courses. A course being defined by the router template(s) and the learning objects they called. This would facilitate the re-use of learning objects.

However I can also imagine situations in which branching is desirable within a learning object. Which is why I created the Routed Tabbed Navigation page wizard, and am also working on a few more routed page wizards. 

If the router template could also receive as an alternative to a learning object url the name of a page in the current learning object, then it could do double duty, both as a hub for learning objects and as a router within a learning object. If it was flexible, as you suggest it could be, in the ways it presented the options, then it could save me the trouble of creating a variety of Routed Page Wizards :-) (I am assuming that it would be possible to convert it once the template was available to a page wizard).

I appreciate that routing within a learning object presents some navigation issues. Linear sections require Next and Previous buttons, whilst these buttons are not always appropriate where routing is being used. Rather a Home button and a Back button based on a LIFO queue may then be preferable. For example I used the Routed Tab Navigator to set up a simple tree structured expert system type learning object, in which every page was based on the Routed Tab Navigator. Previous and Next are then irrelevant but Home and Back become critical.

The problems arise when you combine sequences and routed sections within one learning object. Maybe the solution is to include the sequenced sections as framework pages with next and previous navigation added on the frameworks Entry Frame and have Home and Back buttons as part of the main navigation.

Creating the template as a separate template would limit it to being a hub for other learning objects. Including it in the Page Templates project wide template would give it the potential to be used within a project.

So any chance of including the capability to route to pages as well as learning objects? If so what might the chances be of offering optional Home and Back buttons on the Xerte Navigation?

Kind regards

Johnathan

---- Julian Tenney <Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk> <mailto:Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk>  wrote: 

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-- 
Peter Snowball
Dept Of Economic Development
Tasmania
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