Service Hours

1.5 hour prep and presentation for Studio Flash Form show-and-tell.

Dynamic multiple choice activity

I've been working on a multiple choice problem. This is somewhat of a side item to the GA Flash Map, although the dynamic part of it may be reusable when I give the user control of the map.

Here's what's happening with this multiple choice movie. I have a basic multiple choice interaction that is available for anyone's deconstruction and reuse here: multi_plus.fla. This requires knowledge of actionscript and an ability to get inside the Flash file to manipulate the contents.

What I am trying to achieve with this dynamic multiple choice activity is the ability to hand the .swf file to someone and give them instructions on how to load in their data. This ties in with an ongoing concept of mine to make items modular and reusable. Putting more thought to this... it really becomes a SCORM type of thing.

So, I have the file working better now than it was last weekend. I am able to load a question and any number of answers into a file. The answers change a key variable, so in theory, the answers can be checked. What I haven't been able to accomplish is clearing the radio buttons. I haven't attempted to check answers or progress to the next question.

Here's the file so far: multi2.html. It looks pretty simple, but keep in mind that everything is loaded via actionscript, in such a way that it will be editable without having to know how it works.
 

Week 3) Interactivity and instructional design

I haven’t been able to work on my project very much this week. I spent some time last weekend trying to create a modular question and answer movie. This was going well until I couldn’t get the dynamic answers to load. I recognize this is similar to my earlier problem with the captions not loading correctly. Honestly, I’m left scratching my head. I’ll take this up again soon.

I’ve tested a number of basic needs for the GA Flash map. What I really need to do now is work on the next level of interactivity – user choice in displayed information. In reading Sims Interactivity: A forgotten art, I would see this particular project as moving from reactive to coactive in my next development phase. This would be a departure from simply showing data (the four districts) to allowing the user to determine what data should be shown. I think I have a good example. The CAES collects impact statements each year on a number of priority areas. I can use this impact data to indicate county extension offices that have concentrated on particular topics. A problem that has been put to me is indicating counties that have taken up issues with water resources. This should be a challenge to fulfill and will add on to the next part of my project.

As to Sims, and the article on interactivity, I enjoyed this and really see that many strides have been made in this area in the past 10 years. To me, the explosion of gaming communities is a major indication for the complexity of interaction that programmers have been able to achieve. I do question Sims statement about interactivity being primarily the instructional technologists domain because there are so many interactive things in our world today that, to me, just don’t seem to be educational. I agree that humans are always adapting and therefore learning, but with an intent towards education? Not so much.

That aside, this paper excites me because I realize how far this field has come in the past ten years and how many cool technologies we have at our disposal – courtesy the entertainment and communication industries. It is a matter of instructional technologists to recognize these tools to be repurposed for educational aims. For instance, the Nintendo Wii unites entire households in gaming, getting people off couches to move their bodies with the games. This kind of technology can be repurposed to teach kids about being active and motivating them to be fit. For adults, technology like this could be utilized to make physical therapy a daily task, done from the comfort of home, with a virtual instructor. As far as simulations go, this concept has been blown out of the water with role-playing games like World of Warcraft, a constantly evolving world that brings people of all nationalities together to play. Imagine a simulated world such as that to learn in, with the ability to make mistakes and connections not possible in the physical world. It would be simply incredible.

Project testing this week:

• caption... success!
• Colored map and captions combined
• Dynamic Captions
• Importing parameters via external .as

References:
Sims, R. (1995). Interactivity: A forgotten art?. Retrieved March 22, 2007, from http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/paper10/paper10.html

Flash Email Form

If you need to include an email mechanism in your Flash movie, you can use actionscript to connect your form elements to UGA's uniform mail processor.

Here is an example of a form created in Flash: emailForm.html
You can download the original Flash file here: emailForm.fla

Create your form:

• Write your form text. This is probably directions and items that describe the input fields.
• Create input text fields for your users to type their responses.
  • Give each input text field a unique VARIABLE name. This is the "Var:" item in properties.
  • Be sure that auto-kerning is not selected.
• Add a submit button.

Create a Thank You page

• This is not necessary, but it is useful if you want a degree of control for what your user sees AFTER they submit the form. This can include a simple message thanking them for their submission, or it may be a new page that you want to redirect them to after they complete a test.
• Once you create your thank you page and post it online, note the URL. You'll need it when you add actionscript to your form.

Power your form with Actionscript:

• Initiate your variables in the first frame and layer. In this case, the order in which you list your variables is how they will be displayed in the email. These variables are required: [see original uniform doc]. You should also list the variables for your input text fields.
• Add the submission script to your submit button. This will be the script that POSTS the form data to the UGA server. This may include the "mailSend" variable.
  • If this form will be loaded on a web page, you may want to include a target for the post action. This target will load your thank you page in a separate window from your movie. This is important if you do not want your user to lose their place in your movie.
  • If this form is part of a Flash projector, do not include a target for the page to load. In this case, your projector will open the user's preferred web browser and load the thank you page.

Resources:
UGA EITS: Example Using Uniform
IT COE: Dr. Rieber's Survey Template