Sarah, I put in two more hours this morning....I now have a "New Atom" button that lets kids start over from scratch. I want to add the ability to remove atoms, but it's a long story to explain why I can't do that....
I got the Bohr Model to work! I'm using variables to track the number of time the user correctly positions a particle. Decision icons use these variables to display varying graphics with 1,2,3,4.... number of particles in the nucleus/electron cloud. I've also decided to use hotspots on the bins to flip the hotspots on the model when the user does a mouseover. I think I need to stop using this program. It just feels....dirty.
-ets
I made some attempts at understanding navigation. I'm still pretty lost.
I'll be back to formulate questions before I meet with David tomorrow.
-sef
I've got the graphics for the Bohr Model done...I have some questions to ask David. It looks like authoware won't let you layer hotspots, nor will it let you have them accept more than one object. I'm lost! Help!
-ets
4/9
I fixed up my stuff to look right with Chi-Wang's. But there are some
weird font things going on. Specifically, at first when I copied my
portion into Chi-Wang's, all of my Geneva font turned into his font. (The
one that the user name appears as). The second time I opened it and
looked at it, all of his fonts changed to Geneva. I'm not going to trouble
with this now. I had some obvious problems with the spacing, which are
fixed. I now know to set up all my quiz questions with the top and bottom
faders on the screen, so that I don't run into problems with overlaps. The
strange problem I had was with my text margins. It's as if they didn't
stay put when I copied into Chi-Wang's portion. I had to go in and click
around in order to get my wrapped text to appear on the screen again. I
think I want to ask David about this phenomenom.
Chi-Wang, is there an easy way to get rid of the forward and reverse
buttons while the quiz portion is in session? I guess we can just set a
variable and hack our way around it. The only issue we have right now is
that user's can go forward and back out of the quiz. Or we could just
disable them, keeping their icons on the screen. Let me know what you
think.
I changed the name of the version that has my quiz working with Chi-Wang's
stuff to "Sample with Quiz.a4p" inside the Authorware work folder.
-sef
Emmanuel, before I forget: for the Bohr model exercise, you cannot remove
elements from the target areas (say, if they put in too many protons, what
do they do?)
I'm looking into making more frameworks, or some sort of low-level reorganization to simplify things. Another option is to give each topic 3 maps, rather than 2, as Chi-wang suggests. I agree with him. I need to sleep.
-ets
4/8
I added the content to the quiz portion for 4 questions and it all works
great on its own. I tested it with Chi-Wang's current version and we have
some compatability issues (see "test with quiz.a4p"). Some we can fix
easily (where graphics line up with the top and bottom 'faders') but
others, like the fact that my font totally changes, I'm going to need to
think about. Ben and Emmanuel and I are meeting at 3 to merge our parts:
My quiz with Emmanuel's interactive exercise, with Ben's intro and glossary
words.
-sef
4/7
I found an example of what I was talking about yesterday in terms of
figuring out how to deal with the glossary. It was part of what we did in
the Authorware tutorial,it's at:
http://www-asia.macromedia.com/support/authorware/docstuff/new/tutorial/awla000.
fm46.html#63817
It talks about applying a "Hot Style" to text. So Ben, check it out.
I made huge progress today and feel much better about Authorware. I have
the basic skeleton of the quiz worked out and all I need to do is add
content. I should be back tonight or tomorrow morning to add the content.
-sef
4/6
If you want to run the authorware help I believe you have to copy
the help file from the authorware directory into the Temporary Work
directory and run it from there. I think it tries to set up a preference
file, but since the only directory on the computer that is writeable is the
Temp directory. Talked with David and suggested we keep in mind the
copyright issues surrounding the use of any graphics/video we use. Our
meeting with David also changed to 11:30 am.
-cwy4/5
Ok, first discovery is that Authorware crashes a lot! (7 times and
counting . . . so save often) After learning more idiosyncracies of
Authorware, we have 3 pages that will work for both backwards and forwards,
restrict skipping ahead before completing exercises, ugly but functional
puzzle pieces (they aren't hyperlinked yet), and a bunch more. Since more
of the quiz/reinforcement stuff is going into the review/exercise portions,
the internals of each page will get messier, but they're not to bad yet.
Don't forget to keep logs of your work and meetings! Check out version 1.6.
-cwy
4/4
Ben, Sarah, and I met today (8:00 am! on a Saturday! Dedication!)
and checked in. I gave them a progress update on the Authorware/graphics
end of things. Our plan is to have at least 1 working exercise for the
demo day. They're shooting to have a complete exercise storyboarded by the
weekend, and start crackin on Authorware during the week.
-cwy
Emmanuel and I plugged in some of his fancy photoshop graphics, so
at least it looks a little better. the puzzle pieces are still pretty
hideous though. We met today in the Lab and discussed how the
Authorware/graphics end of things are. I'm meeting with Ben and Sarah to
check in on the exercise storyboarding and I'll let them know where we are.
We also talked to David Reville after class today and set up an Authoware
tutorial meeting for tuesday 10:30am.
-cwy
4/1
Started some of the puzzle piece stuff. Have 3 topics, but only
works as long as you don't try to go backwards through pages. Not great,
but a basis for what's to come. Versions 1.2 & 1.3. Added in some empty
pages and Maps where exercises and things could be plugged in.
-cwy