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| | The user needs to quit the launched activity when finished to return to the Learn activity. Sugar treats the launched activity as a window opened by Learn and so gets confused if the user tries to return to Learn via the frame. | | The user needs to quit the launched activity when finished to return to the Learn activity. Sugar treats the launched activity as a window opened by Learn and so gets confused if the user tries to return to Learn via the frame. |
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| − | ==Update==
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| − | [[Image:example_activity.png]]
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| − | The teacher creates or modifies lessons (activities) using the edit button on the header of the activity page.
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| − | This button loads the lesson into an editor (based on tinymce).
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| − | The content editor enables the user to create or modify a lesson. The lesson
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| − | is an HTML web page. The editor (tinymce) fenables the content to be edited as
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| − | plain text. Some patience is required because the editor is going from plain text to
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| − | HTML modes character-by-character.
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| − | ===Uploading Milestones===
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| − | The buttons (edit and up arrow) on the right of the header are used in creating lessons. Learn downloads milestones as a single zipped file. Learn also provides for modified milestones to be uploaded to the school server.
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| − | If the up arrow is clicked in a milestone (activity ladder), the milestone will be packed and uploaded to the schoolserver. For learn-50, this can also be done using a USB flash drive in lieu of the school server. Mount a flash drive with a folder 'kls' at the root level. Learn will use this folder for uploads and downloads. For example, a milestone could be created with several activities (e.g. in Laboratory) and then uploaded by the up-arrow. The flash drive could be unmounted and moved to another laptop. On that laptop the milestone can be downloaded (click on the milestone which now has a light blue cap).
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| − | Note that Learn has only been tested and is only supported on OLPC laptops at present. Learn is best used with a recent build of the software (e.g. 11.2).
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| − | ===Examples===
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| − | The first milestone in Explore/examples has five activities which illustrate the capabilities of basic lessons which can be created by educators with limited computer experience. The examples in the other milestonse require intervention by someone familiar with the Linux and with using the Terminal activity.
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| − | The first example is straight text. Such an activity is often used at the beginning of a milestone to introduce its topic.
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| − | The second example is a text illustrated by an image. In the edit mode, an image may be added using the camera icon. The camera icon shows all of the images in the Documents folder (/home/olpc/Documents). This folder is made visible in the Journal activity of recent builds of the XO software. Images may be created with the Record activity or as sreenshots (ALT+1). It is wise to give each image a meaningful title as it is added to the Journal. Try to make the title with no spaces (e.g. use a hyphen or underscore or period instead. The best choice is the underscore because the hyphen and period may have special uses. Images may also be created using Sugar activities such as Paint. The image may be copied from the Journal to the Documents folder. Images taken with a mobile phone or digital camera may be copied to the Documents folder from a flash drive. It is often useful to make a diagram on paper and then photograph the paper. Make sure the paper is flat and well lit. A picture of a lesson on a blackboard can also be easily added to a Learn activity.
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| − | In the edit mode, there is a camera icon at the top right of the screen. Clicking on this icon shows a screen with thumbnails of the images in the Documents folder. The user selects the correct image for the activity. The user is asked to specify the width and height of the image. The width of the screen is 1200 pixels so a width of 600 will occupy half of the screen. Images are often in a ration of 4:3 so that an image with a width of 600 would have a height of 450. In addition, the user is asked on which screen the image should appear. Finally, the user may specify the image as right or left. An image will appear at the top of the screen to the right or left with text flowing around it. If neither right or left is specified, the image will be centered at the top and the text will begin below the iamge. When the lesson is saved, the Learn activity makes a copy of the image in the activity folder resized to the specification. It adds code which will show the image on the screen. The user clicks on the save icon and then the left arrow to leave the edit mode. The iamge will now be visible in the lesson.
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| − | The third example shows a multi-screen lesson. Using scrolling on an XO is awkward at best. It is better to divide a lesson into multiple screens (pages) to prevent the need for scrolling. The Learn activity provides navigation buttons at the bottom of the screen which make it easy for students to move from one screen to the next. The lesson needs to be divided at logical points. This is accomplished by moving the cursor immediately to the left of the first character of the next screen and inserting a 'horizontal rule' using the first tool on the third row of the editor's toolbar.
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| − | The fourth example shows a lesson with an image and an audio track. The track can be pre-recorded as in the British Council story or can be recorded by the lesson author. The recording can be made using Record although
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| − | the microphone amplification of the XO is often insufficient. It can also be made by an external microphone using Record or using an external voice recorder. As with an image, the clip is copied from the Journal or an external flash drive to the Documents folder. Clicking on the microphone icon at the top of the edit screen shows all of the audio clips in the Documents folder. The user selects the correct clip for the activity. When the lesson is saved, the Learn activity will add the clip to the lesson.
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| − | When a student does the activity, there will be a play button on the bottom right of the screen. When clicked the audio clip will play and a pause button will be shown. When the pause button is clicked, the playback stops and the play button is shown. The playback continues independently of the screen shown. The British Council story, for example, allows the student to read the story advancing to the next page in time with the audio track.
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| − | The fifth example shows a lesson which includes a quiz. The quiz is entered in a special format developed by Moodle called 'gift'. In edit mode, the lesson may show special comments framed by '/*' and '*/'. The quiz is entered in this form.
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| − | The questions are entered between the following lines:
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| − | /*Quiz
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| − | questions go here
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| − | */
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| − | The word Quiz (capitol Q) must be entered after /* with no spaces.
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| − | The '*/' is on a separate line. The questions are entered between these two lines separated by a blank line.
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| − | Here are some example questions:
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| − | /*Quiz
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| − | The Learn activity is part of the Karma Learning System.{T}
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| − | The OLPC laptop is often referred to by two letters. What are they? {=XO =xo}
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| − | There {=are} many people world-wide supporting the OLPC project. [is are]
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| − | One of these organizations is not related to the others. Which one? {=CIA ~OLPC ~Sugarlabs ~Red Hat}
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| − | */
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| − | The first question is True-False. Answers are shown between braces '{ }'. The answer to a True-False question may be any of T, t, True, true, F, f, False, false. Note that, unlike the othere answers, an equal sign '=' is not needed.
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| − | The second question is short answer. Acceptable answers (one or more) are given between braces. In this case, XO and xo will be accepted as correct. Xo and xO would be considered incorrect.
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| − | The third question is a cloze. It is identical to the short answer except the braces are within the text. The student will see a blank (underlines) where the braces are entered along with a place to enter the answer.
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| − | The fourth question is multiple-choice. The choices are given between braces. The correct answer is indicated by the equal sign '='. The incorrect choices (distractors) are indicated by the tilde sign '~'.
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| − | The quiz is created when the lesson is saved. When the student opens the lesson, there will be a 'Start' button shown on the bottom right of the screen. The screen gives information (e.g. a diagram) needed to answer the questions and/or instructions on answering the questions (e.g. round your answer to two decimal places).
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| − | When the student presses the Start button, he is given the questions one at a time in the order they appear in the lesson (not randomized).
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| − | ===Using Sugar Activities===
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| − | A lesson may launch a Sugar activity. This is accomplished by entering a special comment as follows:
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| − | /*B:ShowNTell,lines.cpxo,application/x-classroompresenter*/
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| − | The comment must be on a single line (word wrap to more than one line is ok). It must start with /*B: and finish with */. Spaces are not allowed. There are three parameters separated by commas. The first is the name of the activity: ShowNTell. Do not include the word activity. Use Turtleart but not Turtle Art or Turtleart.activity.
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| − | The second parameter is tha name of a bundle to be associated with the activity at launch. The third parameter is the mime-type of the bundle.
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| − | A comment such as /*B:Write*/ would result in a launching the Write activity as a new start.
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| − | The specified bundles must be in the activity folder. At present there is no automated procedure to create bundles (normally done using the activity itself), nor to copy the bundle to the activity folder. This can be done using the Terminal activity (command line).
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| − | In learn-51, this capability will be extended to 'templates'. A template is a Sugar activity or Karma library animation which can be included in an activity with special content entered as a comment. For example, an activity could launch the Wordsearch activity with a specific wordlist. This might appear as follows:
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| − | /*B:Wordsearch,vocab.txt,text/plain
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| − | head
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| − | foot
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| − | finger
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| − | chest
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| − | shoulder
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| − | throat
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| − | leg
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| − | */
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| − | Notice that the entry is the same as that for launching a Sugar activity except that word list is entered between the /* and the */ which are now on separate lines. The first line must have the parameters. The wordlist starts on the next line. The '*/' must be on a line by itself.
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| − | In learn-51 it will therefore be possible to use Sugar activities or templates without the need for using the Terminal activity (command-line).
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| | ==TinyMCE== | | ==TinyMCE== |