Dragster & Articulate example – Know your europe

Another excellent piece of work from the team at the University of Leeds which demonstrates how a series of Dragster 3 activities can be delivered within an Articulate Presenter presentation. Particularly effective is the use of audio to introduce each of the drag and drop activities.  (View the Know the European Union presentation).

LT@Leeds podcast

Check out the LT@Leeds podcast for an entertaining and informative insight into the use of learning technologies produced by the team at the University of Leeds.  I’m obviously excited by the topic of episode 6, but I’m sure this podcast will cover many other interesting topics too!

How to create a video based Dragster activity using an FLV file

In the previous blog post instructions were provided on how to create dragster activities that used a youtube video as the dropzone.  In this post a similar set of instructions and files are provided that demonstrate how to create a video based Dragster 3 drag and drop activity where you have the original video file available and can convert it into an FLV file.

Below is an example activity created using the approach described here:

1. Create your video file

A useful overview of creating digital video is provided by mediacollege.com

To make the most of the dropzone area of a dragster 3 activity you
should try to encode your video with dimensions of 600 by 450 pixels.
Other video sizes will work but these will be resized
within the activity dropzone. The activity will take place on the paused last frame of the video and so it should be edited with this in mind.

2. Publish/Convert your video file into FLV format

In order to display a video within a Dragster 3 activity it needs to be encoded in the flash compatible FLV video format.  There are a variety of tools available for publishing into FLV format or converting from alternative formats (e.g. Adobe Flash, On2 Flix, Sorenson Squeeze, Riva FLV encoder).

Save this video file as video.flv

3. Download the FLV video dragster files

I have provided a set of 4 files to aid your creation of these video Dragster 3 activities.

Download a zip file containing these files

You will need to save these on to your PC and extract them (left click on the downloaded zip file and select Extract all…)

Now copy the video file (video.flv) into this extracted folder overwriting the example video file with the same name already in this folder.

4. Create a dropzone image of the paused video

Within this downloaded folder is a file called video.html Open this file in your web browser to view your video as it will be displayed within the Dragster activity. Play the video until it reaches the end frame and pauses.  At this point you need to create a jpg image file to use as the dropzone image in your activity authoring.

As mentioned in the previous post, I have used two alternative methods to do this:

1. use screen capture software such as TechSmith SnagIt
2. press the PrtScrn button on your keyboard then open image editing software such as Photoshop or Fireworks and use Paste to place a copy of your entire screen into the working area. Then crop this image.

Ultimately you need to create a jpg image which is 600 by 450 pixels in size which just includes the flash file displaying your video. This means the edges of this image should be where the green background meets the edges of the video. Save this image as video.jpg

5. Author and publish the Dragster 3 activity

You should now login to your myWebducate account and author the activity in the usual way using the jpg image created in step 4 as the dropzone. When you are happy with this activity publish it and extract the published files in the usual way.

6. Copy the video related files into the activity folder

Copy your video files into the extracted activity folder (i.e. copy the files: video.flv, video.swf, SteelOverNoVol.swf, video.html into the activity folder).

7. Edit the Dragster 3 activity dragndrop.xml file

Nearly done now… Open the published activity dragndrop.xml file in a text editor such as Notepad and edit the line <target targetImage=”video.jpg“
/> replacing video.jpg with video.swf. Save the amended dragndrop.xml file.

8. Test the activity

You can now test this activity by opening the index.html file within the activity folder with your web browser.

Have fun using these two approaches to embed video in your activities. If/when you develop an activity you are proud of and are happy to share please do let me know!

How to create a YouTube based Dragster 3 activity

In the blog post titled Youtube videos in Dragster activities – demo, an activity was demonstrated (youtube heart mri activity) that used a youtube video as the dropzone for the activity (see screenshot below).

This approach opens up enormous possibilities for activities based on interpreting moving rather than static images. The instructions below describe how to go about creating such an activity:

1. Get the youtube video id code

Identify the youtube video on which you wish to base your activity and make a note of the youtube video id code. This is the code in the youtube web address after the ?v= (for example for the youtube video viewed at the web address of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDqvg26jK9s the id code you need to note is UDqvg26jK9s).

2. Identify the video pause time

Watch this video and pause it at the appropriate moment for the drag and drop activity to take place. Make a note of the time displayed in the youtube player bar (in the example screen shot below this time is 42 seconds).

3. Download the youtube dragster files

I have provided a set of 3 files to aid your creation of youtube based Dragster 3 activities.

Download a zip file containing these files

You will need to save these on to your PC and extract them (left click on the downloaded zip file and select Extract all…)

4. Edit the youtube.xml file

Open the youtube.xml file in a text editor such as Notepad (right click on the file and select Open with > Notepad) This is a very simple file in which you will need to edit only two sections.

Replace the UDqvg26jK9s with you youtube video id code identified in step 1 (i.e. change id=”UDqvg26jK9s” to id=”your youtube id code“).

Replace the 42 with your video pause time in seconds (i.e. change pause=”42″ to pause=”your video pause time in seconds“)

Save the amended youtube.xml file.

NB there are two other settings in yourtube.xml which set the video volume (values 0-100) and a background colour (a hex code prefixed by 0x), you should be able to work out how to amend these if necessary)

5. Create a dropzone image of the paused video

Now the tricky bit… Within this downloaded folder is a file called youtube.html If you open this file with your browser it will attempt to display a flash movie that contains the youtube video. However because you are opening this file on your PC, a security message will be displayed and the video will not appear.  The easiest way to get around this problem is to upload this folder of three files on to a webserver (e.g. by FTP) and then open the youtube.html file. This should then display the youtube video which can be played and will pause at the appropriate time. The alternative is to amend your flash player security settings as instructed by the pop-up security message, but this approach is not recommended.

When you are viewing youtube.html with the video paused at the appropriate moment, you need to create a jpg image file of this to use as the dropzone image in your activity authoring.  I said this bit was a bit tricky!

I have used two alternative methods to do this:

1. use screen capture software such as TechSmith SnagIt
2. press the PrtScrn button on your keyboard then open image editing software such as Photoshop or Fireworks and use Paste to place a copy of your entire screen into the working area.

Ultimately you need to create a jpg image which is 600 by 450 pixels in size which just includes the flash file displaying your youtube video. This means the edges of this image should be where the green background meets the faded background of the flash file. Save this image as youtube.jpg

6. Author and publish the Dragster 3 activity

You should now login to your myWebducate account and author the activity in the usual way using the jpg image created in step 5 as the dropzone. When you are happy with this activity publish it and extract the published files in the usual way.

7. Copy the youtube related files into the activity folder

Copy your edited youtube files into the extracted activity folder (i.e. copy your amended youtube.xml file, and the youtube.swf and youtube.html files into the the activity folder).

8. Edit the Dragster 3 activity dragndrop.xml file

Nearly done now… Open the published activity dragndrop.xml file in a text editor such as Notepad and edit the line <target targetImage=”youtube.jpg“
/> replacing youtube.jpg with youtube.swf. Save the amended dragndrop.xml file.

9. Publish the activity on to a webserver

Now if you view this activity by opening the related index.html file, you will encounter the same security message mentioned in step 5. So to test this activity you will need to publish it onto a webserver and then navigate to the activity index.html file.

That’s it.  I hope you can work your way through this process and create some exciting video based activities using youtube.  Soon I will publish files and instructions for creating activities based on video files encoded in FLV format. Watch this space! (view this blog post on creating activities based on flv video files)

Dragster 3 – new features – custom skin colours, preview etc

In recent weeks a number of improvements have been made to the Dragster 3 authoring system.  You can now:

1. Reorder the results by element page to get a clearer view of the elements that users are getting correct, close and incorrect in your activities.

   

2. Use the new custom skin option and custom skin colour setting to select any colour to form the activity background.

   

3. Use the new background colour setting to alter the background colour for the activity page.
4. Choose whether to display the Webducate logo on the introduction panel or not using the show logo in intro panel setting.
5. Use a simple new pop-up colour picker to define colours on the activity settings page. This colour picker appears when you select any hex colour text entry. Choose a colour by adjusting the vertical colour scale selector and dragging the circle cusor on the colour chart. When you have selected the correct colour, click on the select colour button in the bottom right of the colour-picker panel. (Thanks are due to Eyecon for developing and making this plugin available).

   

6. Preview activities before publishing using the new preview link on the activity publish page.

   

Dragster help movie – defining target areas with zoom and keyboard controls

The updated Dragster 3 target area definition facility provides several ways to improve the accuracy and time taken to author element feedback. This help movie provides an overview of the new functionality provided and gives some tips to improve your target area authoring. Included are the use of new keyboard controls (summarised below) and how to zoom in and out during the authoring process (View the defining target areas movie).

Keyboard controls:

Arrow keys – accurately move the last target area point for the live target area.
D – deletes the last target area point on the live target area.
R – resets the target area for the live target area.
W – toggle the cursor and area points from grey to white and back again.

Dragster 3 results by element feedback graph

An additional feature has been added to the View results by element page which provides a graphical overview of the feedback provided on recorded results for each draggable element. This graph displays the relative proportions of correct, close, miss and undefined feedback displayed in the recorded activity results (element feedback is considered undefined if the element has not been moved on to the dropzone image).

These graphs allow the viewer to quickly identify which activity elements are most often positioned correctly and incorrectly.  Clicking on the related View icon will then allow them to investigate the positioning of this element in more detail.

To see this in action view the Volcano activity results by element page.

Please Note – this feature was added on 16th April 2009 and only activities published after this date will display this facility.

Using SWFs as dropzone images in Dragster

One of the more advanced ways of building drag and drop activities with Dragster 3 is to use SWF files (flash movie files) as the drop zone image for your activity.

Why use SWF files?

There are two reasons you may wish to do this:

1. Avoiding distortion on scaling – When you are scaling your activity to fill the browser, the dropzone image can appear pixelated with JPG or GIF files. This is particularly a problem when the dropzone image includes text which can become distorted and difficult to read when scaled. Using a SWF file in these cases means that the dropzone image will scale without distortion (View the Gapminder World Chart activity – try right clicking and using Zoom In to observe how the use of a SWF dropzone retains clarity).

   

2. Animation and interactivity – Using a SWF as the dropzone allows enormous flexibility in adding interactivity and animation. For example using video in an activity dropzone as demonstrated in this running gait analysis activity.

   

How to create SWF files

Now the difficult bit.  Creating SWF files (flash movies) can be quite involved depending on the complexity of the interactions required and will require the use of particular software.  Here are a few tips based on my experience to date:

Without Flash software – When creating non-interactive SWF dropzone images I have made some use of Adobe Fireworks to draw the image and then used the Save as > Flash SWF option. However this approach is not perfect and you may find that fonts, colour gradients, drop shadows etc are lost in the conversion.

With Flash software – Adobe Flash is expensive and complex software but its use offers almost unlimited possibilities. I begin by creating a movie of dimensions 600 by 450 pixels and then draw directly onto the movie stage.  Keep each drawn element on a separate layer and convert elements that you wish to add dropshadow filters into movieclips.

Hopefully this post has demonstrated some of the possibilities offered by using SWF files as dropzone images in Dragster 3 activities. Unfortunately creating SWF files is not simple but hopefully I have shown it can be worth the effort!

Improved target area authoring

We have implemented an update to the target area authoring facility on the Dragster 3 system.  This offers several improvements over the previous version:

1. The position of the last point can now be accurately repositioned using the arrow keys on your keyboard. Click the mouse to place the point, then press the left, right, up and down arrow keys to move the point one pixel in the corresponding directions.
2. The X-Y positions of the cursor and the last point are displayed on the target authoring screen.
3. The point markers now also switch to white when you choose to use a white cursor.
4. Choosing to use a white cursor or target now switches all three options to white.
5. Selections for white cursor and display image / text box are now remembered by the system so you don’t have to repeatedly reselect these as you author each target area.

Dragster 3 – Results histogram

A bar chart displaying the profile of recorded activity scores has been added to the results page for Dragster 3 activities.  Clicking on a bar in the chart will display only those activity results within the range represented by that bar.

Try it and see!

With this feature you can now quickly assess how your students are doing and identify problem areas.

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