The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description and the accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters refer to the same parts throughout the different views. The drawings illustrate principles of the invention and, although not to scale, show relative dimensions.
a illustrates a Web page including the interactive software tool of the illustrative embodiment.
The software application of the illustrative embodiment provides a mechanism by which a provider of a computer based learning (Web or local host) can assist a student on developing and enhancing his learning strategies and skills. A “computer based learning (Web or local host)” is an organization that provides instruction and practice of skills over a wired and/or wireless communication network, such as the Internet, an intranet, an extranet, a local area network (LAN) and a wide area network (WAN), and other networks enabling communication among computers. Also, the provision can be made within a personal compute, for example, trough a CD ROM or other magnetic, electronic or magnetic device. An on-line network learning centre maintains a server having a domain name associated with the learning centre. Administrators of the learning centre develop, create, edit and/or administer an on-line educational course. An “on-line educational course” is curriculum, such as a training course for a new technology that is delivered to a student over a wired and/or wireless communication network as described above. Course material in the on-line educational course may consist of many units or chapters and may include text, graphics, sound, movies and exercises to be performed by the student. Through the use of the software application, an interactive graphic organizer software tool, the student can practice learning strategies and skills. The interactive software tool provides the student the construction of a personalised graphic organized with as many shapes connectors and its contents.
As used herein the term “shape” refers to a pre design graphical form, of which the student may include up to a predetermined number. The term “connector” as used herein refers to predetermined lines that associate shapes.
The present invention can be implemented in an on-line learning management system. The management system may provide on-line opportunities for students to register in educational courses pertaining to any number of different subject areas, use the information presented in the course and practice learning strategies and skills through the included interactive graphic organizers. To view and use the interactive graphic organizers, it is needed a browser (MS Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape and others) and the flash plug-in for the browser. The interactive graphic organizers can also be used in a stand alone fashion; that is, each can individually be called to a computer screen through Flash Player, freely distributed software.
Flash, refers to both the Adobe Flash Player and to a multimedia authoring program used to create content for the Adobe Engagement Platform (such as web applications, games and movies). The Flash Player, developed and distributed by Adobe Systems is a client application available in most dominant web browsers. It features support for vector and raster graphics, a scripting language called Action Script and bidirectional streaming of audio and video.
Strictly speaking, Adobe Flash is an integrated development environment (IDE) while Flash Player is a virtual machine used to run, or parse, the Flash files, but in contemporary colloquial terms “Flash” can refer to the authoring environment, the player or the application files. Since its introduction in 1996, Flash technology has become a popular method for adding animation and interactivity to web pages; several software products, systems, and devices are able to create or display Flash. Flash is commonly used to: create animation, advertisements, various web-page components, integrate video into web pages, and more recently, develop Rich Internet Applications like portals.
The Flash files, traditionally called “flash movies”, usually have a .swf (Small Web File) file extension and may be an object of a web page or strictly “played” in the standalone Flash Player.
ActionScript is an ECMA (Sun Microsystems standard) script-based programming language used for scripting Adobe Flash movies and applications. Since both ActionScript and JavaScript are based on the same ECMAScript syntax, fluency in one theoretically translates easily to the other. However, while JavaScript's DOM (document object model) is browser window, document and form centric, the ActionScript DOM is movie centric, which may include animations, audio, text and event handling.
To run an ActionScript software tool from a Web site, the developer inserts a .swf application into an HTML document, an XML document or the code of some type of page description language, which instruct the browser to download the appropriate .swf movie from the Web server and then execute the interactive graphic organizer.
The illustrative embodiment of the present invention is described relative to a software tool in the ActionScript programming language. However, the present invention is not limited to the specific embodiment. It should be noted that other languages can have different forms of a program that perform the same function, and the present invention can be used in a programming environment other than ActionScript. Furthermore, the present invention is not specifically limited to an ActionScript software tool executed from a Web browser, and may be implemented as various types of code modules in accordance with the teachings of the present invention.
The client machine 3C can be a personal computer, a workstation, an Internet appliance, a personal digital assistant, a cell phone, a set-top box with attached television, an intelligent pager or a wide variety of other items capable of communicating with a user.
To run the interactive software tool of the illustrative embodiment of the present invention, the Web server 3E sends an HTML document with an embedded interactive software tool to a client machine 3C of the network 3A. The HTML interpreter then interprets the HTML document. The plug-in in the Web browser executes the interactive software tool and displays an Interactive Graphical Organizer Interface (IGO) on the video display screen 4C of the client 3C. The IGO, which will be described in detail with reference to
a illustrates an interactive graphic organizer user interface (IGO) according to an illustrative embodiment of the present invention. The illustrated interactive software tool provides users with opportunity to practice learning strategies and skills regarding information presented in an on-line tutorial. In
The IGO illustrated in
According to the materials previously seen by the user and according to the illustrative embodiment, there may be more than one correct filling in of the interactive graphic organizer.
According to one embodiment, 8F in
According to other embodiments, 8G, 8H and 8I in
According to the illustrative embodiment of the present invention, the interactive software tool is embedded in a page within the computer based course (web or local). The page is an HTML, XML, or other page description language document including a link to the interactive software tool. An HTML file is a hypertext markup language file conventionally used in creating documents on the World Wide Web or Internet. HTML defines the layout and structure of the file, using various tags and attributes. As discussed, the HTML file used in conjunction with the interactive software tool of the present invention can include graphic organizers and reference the containing small web file.
An example of an HTML fragment suitable for implementation in the illustrative case includes the following code:
This code defines a small web file application embedded in an HTML document. Through the OBJECT tag and the EMBED tag, the swf application is inserted into the HTML document. The required attributes needed to insert the swf application are:
The ActionScript definition file written for the interactive software tool (interactive graphic organizer) of the present invention includes the functions and other parameters which are hidden from the user. For example the inclusions or deletions of shapes retain display symmetry whether the number of shapes is par or odd. A definition file for the interactive software tool of the illustrative embodiment of the present invention may include the following code, which is illustrative of one embodiment of the invention and is not to be construed in a limiting sense:
In the example set forth above, the scrip checks the number of inserted shapes and if this number is greater then zero the shape is deleted. Then a list named ListSimilarity is generated, where input text is kept. Next the similarity movie is deleted and so are all associated connectors and the similarity counter is lessened. Finally, the other similarities are repositioned and their texts are moved to their new positions. All this provides the effect that an intermediate shaped was deleted rather than the last one.
To run an ActionScript software tool from a Web site, the developer inserts a .swf application into an HTML document, an XML document or the code of some type of page description language, which instruct the browser to download the appropriate .swf movie from the Web server and then execute the interactive graphic organizer.
Otherwise an interactive graphic organizer can be used in a standalone personal computer configuration.
These examples are meant to be illustrative and not limiting. The present invention has been described by way of example (more examples are shown in
Features and characteristics of the above-described embodiments may be used in combination. This description is to be construed as illustrative only and is for the purpose of teaching those skilled in the art the best mode for carrying out the invention. The preferred embodiments are merely illustrative and should not be considered restrictive in any way. Details of the structure may vary substantially without departing from the spirit of the invention, and exclusive use of all modifications that come within the scope of the appended claims is reserved. It is intended that the invention be limited only to the extent required by the appended claims and the applicable rules of law. The scope of the invention is to be measured by the appended claims, rather than the preceding description, and all variations and equivalents that fall within the range of the claims are intended to be embraced therein.