Brancher
Why Brancher?
Image of a configured Presenter interaction.

Complete Instructions

For complete instructions please open the attached PDF file and print it out.

Please note: You must have Adobe Reader installed for your browser.

(PDF file not yet available)


Getting Started :

By default, the first page has a layout of type 'Title'. The 'Title' layout has two fields. Type in the title of your activity in the top field. Optionally, type in your name in the bottom field, and then read the instructions that follow, under 'Adding Pages'.

 


 

Adding Pages:

After configuring the first page, click on the 'add' button to add additional pages to your project (activity). With each page that is added you select a page layout from the drop down list. Some pages are for displaying text, some for images, and some are a combination of the two. In addition there are also a number of question layout options and menu layout options to select from. There is also a 'gate' layout and a 'wall' layout that we will discuss soon.

The button pictured below enables you to add pages. The button is a blue button with a plus sign next to it.


Page Types:

Here is a summary of the page types:

Title Page -- used for titles

Full Page Text -- used to display a full page of text.

Full Page Image -- used to display an image, animation or a video.

Col 1:Text | Col 2: Text -- used to display two columns of text

Col 1:Text | Col 2: Image -- used to display one column of text and one column of image

Row 1:Text | Row 2: Image -- used to display one row of text and one row of image

Question (Layout A) -- used to display a question with an image and text area.

Question (Layout B) -- used to display a question with an image.

Question (Layout Without Image) -- used to display a question without an image or supplemental text area.

Menu (Layout A) -- used to display a 4 item menu without images.

Menu (Layout B) -- used to display a 3 item menu with images.

Gate -- used to set a minimum score before allowing a student to pass through the 'gate' into the next section.

Wall -- used to restrict a user's movement in the activity. The instructor places a wall between sections, which prevents students from wandering from section A to section B, without, for example, first achieving a specific score or being hyperlinked to the section.

Question Pages:

Questions can appear anywhere within the presentation.

There are three different layouts for questions. Question (Layout A) supports a chunk of formatted text to the left, an image to the right, a question stem and distractors.

This question layout can be used in different ways. The top text box can be used to display useful information. To the right of the top text box appears an image area. You can ignore this or import an image through the various means that lodeStar supports. The long box below the top text box and image area is for a short question. If more space is needed, the top text box can be used.

Below the short question area, you will find four boxes. Place the correct answer in one box and three distractors in the remaining boxes. Distractors are the options. Check off which distractors contain correct answers. More than one answer can be correct and the interface will utilize checkboxes rather than radio buttons.

Types Of Media:

Text

Text boxes come in two flavors. If the text box has no buttons above the text box that enable you to bold, italicize, and underline, this type of text box is for simple text entry. The text might be project title, a question or distractor. This type of text box doesn't allow you to bold, italicize, underline, align or do anything than enter text.

The other type is a rich text box. You will notice the buttons for bold (or alt B), italic (alt I), underline (alt U). You can also align the text, change its color and size. LodeStar doesn't support different fonts because of end-user (student computer) issues with missing device fonts and file sizes.

You can also add a hyperlink to the rich text. The hyperlink button is found to the right of the font-size pull down menu.

Images

Caution: Before you use text, images or animations from a web page or some other copyrighted source, know the law. Review the TEACH Act. Go to

 http://www.lodestarlearning.com/c_TeachAct.html

 

lodeStar is able to do more with images than meets the eye. lodeStar has a built in image editor and can also import simple Macromedia SWF files and small Flash Video Files (i.e. FLV files). lodeStar can also accept a pasted url to an external Flash Video. (Do this by following these steps: Copy url to clipboard, right-click on image area, select 'Paste'. Url must end in .flv)

 

There are numerous ways to import an image.

 

Method 1: The default Paste method

Right click on an image in an Internet browser and select Copy. Right click on the image area on a LodeStar page and select Paste.

If the image is larger than the designated image area, lodeStar will scale down the image so that it will properly fit inside the image area.

 

Method 2: The default Open method

 

Click on an image area in lodeStar. You will see the following:

 

 

You can then select your image and it will automatically import and automatically resize to fit the image area.

 

Method 3: The Paste-Manual Crop method

 

Copy an image to the clipboard from Internet Explorer. Then right-click on the image area inside lodeStar. Select Paste-Manual Crop.

If the image is larger than the image area, you will see vertical and horizontal slider bars. Position the image the way you want to view the image. The image will be automatically cropped once you save.

 

Method 4: The Edit/Open method

 

Right-click on the image area. Select Edit/Open. The following image dialog appears:

 

 

 

You can use the tools at the top of the dialog box to do the following:

 

Browse – find an image on the hard drive

Acquire – (not implemented yet)

Web – type in a URL of an image located on the web

Crop - Select and then drag your cursor over the area you wish to crop.

(Very important: You must click on Crop again to crop the image)

Rotate – rotate image by specified number of degrees

Flip – flip image on its horizontal or vertical axis

Scale – automatically scale down an image to whatever size you specify

Important Note: Once you've edited your image, click on the button titled ‘Use it', and then wait. lodeStar will process the image and then display both the image and the message “Image is Ready”.

Important Tip: You cannot paste directly into the Image Dialog (the editor that was shown above). You can, however, paste into the image area by right clicking and choosing Paste – Manual Crop. Once you have pasted the image, right click and select Open. You can now resize or crop the original image.

 



Hypertext Links:

Hypertext links can now be easily added by using the link button in the rich text toolbar. Once the icon is clicked, you will be prompted to enter a label and the Internet address (URL) of the resource you would like to link to. These resources will be presented in a separate browser window when the user clicks the link.
Image showing how to create a hypertext link.

 

A note about the behavior of hyperlinks. When previewing locally, the flash activity will cause two windows to open. This behavior doesn't happen once you post the activity to the web or to a learning management system.

The behavior of pop-up windows is affected by pop-up blocker settings, and the browser settings. Students should pay attention to their tabbed browser settings. Some browsers are set to launch a new window. Some are set to create a new tab and tuck the new page under the tab. The student must know what to expect. Sometimes, a new blank window appears but the right page appears also, in its own window. Students should be shown what to look for.


Adding Music or Narration:

Each page has the option of adding an mp3 asset. When an mp3 file is used a media controller is displayed on screen to allow the user to control the volume as well as play, pause, and rewind control.


Adding Math Equations:

Any place that allows an image to be displayed can also display a math equation. lodeStar has a built in Latex math editor. To access the editor, right click on an image area and select Equation Editor from the menu. After you have entered an equation, click the Render button to see how it will be displayed. Click the Use It button to apply it to your image area.


Adding FLV Movies:

Any place that allows an image to be displayed can also display an FLV Movie. These are movies that have been created specifically for playback within Flash activities.

There are two ways to add FLV Movies to your Brancher project.

Option 1: Embedding the FLV Movie

The first way is just like adding a jpg image except in the dialog box change the filtetype from "*.jpg" to "*.flv". Browse your computer to find the file and click the "Open" button. A copy of your FLV Movie will be placed inside your project. This is not a recommended good practice. FLV files are huge and your Learning Management System may not be provisioned to handle large file sizes. Use this option sparingly for small files.

Option 2: Referencing the FLV Movie

If the movie you want to use is already accessable on the internet by a known web address (URL) then the URL can be pasted into the image area. To do this, copy the url into your clipboard and then right click the image area and select "Paste" from the submenu. This option will not make a copy of the FLV Movie but will load it by reference.

Do not use this technique for YouTube videos. YouTube videos don't readily display the true web address where the video is located. See LodeStar's web journal for more details.


Creating a Branch, Step by Step

Let's create two questions. The first question will have 4 distractors. Distractors are answer options. Based on a right answer we'll branch the student to the next question. Based on an incorrect answer, we'll branch the student to some instruction.

To use Brancher, be sure to title each page by typing in a title next to the words 'Page Title (Leave Blank for Defaults)' For the first question, type in 'Q1'.

Select the layout type labeled 'Question (Layout without Image)' This will give you a very simple layout with one question stem and four distractors.

For the question stem, type in your question. (For example, I'll type in 'What is 4 + 4?')

For the distractors, type in 0, 8, 16, 32

Check off the right answer. In this example, check off '8'.

Create four additional pages. Keep the same layout for the first of the additonal pages. That means 'Question (Layout without Image)'. Label it 'Q2' This is the page that students will branch to as a result of correctly answering '8'. In other words, if the students answers correctly, the program moves on to the next question. If the student answers incorrectly, the program provides additional instruction. Students who know the material move quickly through the program or get advanced instruction. Students who don't know the material, get help.

Change the second of the additional pages to a new layout: 'Full Page Text' Give it a title. Title it 'Q1-1 Incorrect'. The students will branch to this page as a result of answering 0. Perhaps, here, one could take the opportunity to explain subtraction versus addition.

Add a third page. Keep the same layout. That is, 'Full Page Text' Give it a title. Title it 'Q1-3 Incorrect'. Students will branch to this page as a result of answering 16.

Finally, create a fourth page. Keep the same layout. Title it 'Q1-4 Incorrect'.

Note: There is no significance in the titles. They are just labels to help us identify the page nodes in the next step.

Let's go back to the original question. 'What is 4 + 4?" We have several options on how we want to handle branching.

 

Our simplest option is to branch to one page as a result of a correct answer or branch to another page as a result of an incorrect answer. We would accomplish this by clicking on the 'Options' button on the page. (See the Options button in the screenshot above.) The pop-up dialog shows us an action pull-down menu for the event that the user selects a checked option and another if the user selects an unchecked option. Checked is correct. Unchecked is incorrect.

As an instructor, you can decide on the action. If the user answers a question correctly, you can

Do nothing. (No action)

Go to next page

Go to previous page

Jump to a page (you would then indicate which page. Here is where the labels help.)

Open URL (pop open another web site)

In our example we would have the student jump to the page titled 'Q2'.

Similarly, you can decide the action if the user answers incorrectly.

 

Sometimes you will want more specific action based on which of the wrong answers was chosen.

In the screenshot above, you will notice the menu that appears when you right-click on a distractor. You will notice a menu item titled 'Branching Options'. These are branching options in the event that the user selects this specific distractor. If 'No Action' is specified, then LodeStar defaults to the checked or unchecked options discussed previously.

The options at the distractor level are a little different. We have the same branching actions:

No action

Go to next page

Go to previous page

Jump to a page

Open URL

 

But we can also choose to display feedback and a specific feedback message. We also have two additional branch options. The user can branch immediately after a specified delay or branch when the next button is clicked.

 


Menus

Perhaps you simply want to provide some options such as Go to Section 1, Go to Section 2. In that case, choose from the menu types rather than the question layout types. Each menu option has its own Branching Options dialog.

 


Gates and Walls

 

Select a gate to do one or more of several things.

Specify a performance score that the user must meet or exceed in order to pass through the gate.

Specify a branch if user passes.

Specify a branch if user fails.

Reset score.

Allow back and/or next button to enable student to navigate within section.

Note: A page can have a back or next button depending on the first preceding gate. If a page is the ninth page and a gate is the fifth page, the button behavior of the ninth page is decided by the options selected on the gate on the fifth page. In this way, you can your students move around freely within a section.

 

Select a wall to do one thing.

A wall prevents a student from paging forward into a new section or paging backwards. Let's examine the following scenario.

Page One - Gate (allows next and back buttons)

Page Two - Content

Page Three - Content

Page Four - Content

Page Five - Wall

 

In the above scenario, the user would be able to move freely between pages two and four. One page two, the back button would be disabled. One page four, the next button would be disabled.

The back button is disabled on page two because a user can't back up into either a gate or a wall. The user can move forward onto a gate, but not onto a wall.

 

 

 

 



Brancher Version 5.01.00
©2008 LodeStar Learning Corp.