The items are numbered in sequence from 1 to 240.
The purpose of the Lesson Planner is to
The items are numbered in sequence from 1 to 240.
The type of each item (I, T, E, S, V, C, R, A, M, F or W)
specifies the purpose of the item, its presentation, and what is required
of the student.
The identification tag of an item contains 14 characters.
This tag is used to name the item in menus and in the lesson Tracker.
When the background of the item tag is black it indicates that no
item has been recorded. If the background is blue the item has a recording.
Items may be assigned a mark of
1 to 9 in the last column of the item. Not all items require or can be marked. E, R, M, S, V, W, A, F items can be assigned a gradable mark)
The Instruction item is used to give instructions
to the student about the lesson or about other types of items that
follow it. Any text in this item is ignored. If a graphic is imported into this lesson and it is of the size 320x240 it will be used as the background for that lesson.
In the example of the planner screen the first two items are both
Instructions. In this case the first Instruction contains sound that
the student hears when first entering the lesson. Usually this is
an explanation of the content or purpose of the lesson.
When the first Instruction finishes playing, the lesson menus are
displayed.
The remaining Instruction items appear on
the first level menu that is presented to the student. When the student
selects any one of these, the second level menu is presented to the
student. The second level menu contains the other types of items that
follow the Instruction item.
When a student selects an item from the second level menu for the
first time, the Instruction item that applies to that menu is played
when the selected item is presented. Picking the next item from the
same menu will not play the Instruction.
If the lesson author does not want the Instruction to play, the Instruction
item should not be recorded (ie: it should be left black).
The Teaching item is used to explain
a concept to the student. It may contain sound, graphics, and text.
The student is asked to study the item and press the Next key. Since
no response is required this item is not visible on the Tracker screen.
The Example item plays an example of speech to the student. The student
is expected to repeat and record the example speech. The student's
recording can be compared with the example and re-recorded as many
times as needed.
The response to this item is accessible from the Tracker screen and
can be marked.
The Simultaneous item plays the sound only when the student is recording.
After the recording is made by the student it may be listened to by the
student. In order for the student to listen to the example again,
they must re-record their speech.
The response to this item is accessible from the Tracker screen and
can be marked.
The Verify item requires the student to make their recording before
they are able to hear the example. At least one recording must be
made before the student may hear the example. The students recording
and example may be compared at this time.
The response to this item is accessible from the Tracker screen and
can be marked.
The Conversation item is combined with an Example item to form a dialogue. The C item is used to play the first part of a conversation, The E item to play an suggested response. The student records their response, and then can play the complete conversation, the first line played by the computer the second line the student's
The Conversation item itself does not appear on a student menu, but the corresponding example does.
The C item must have sound. Graphics or text are ignored.
This item is not visible on the Tracker screen though the corresponding example item is. It is only the corresponding example item that can be marked.
A Reading item presents text, possibly with graphics, and asks the
student to read the text. No recorded sound is played.
This item is visible from the Tracker screen and can be marked.
The Ask item is used to ask
a question. It may contain sound, graphics, and text.
The student is asked to record an answer to the question. The sound
file is available to the instructor through the Tracker and may be
marked.
A Multiple Choice item presents
text and may play sound or show a graphic. The student is required
to select one of a number of answers.
The computer is capable of deciding the correctness of the student's
answer. This item is visible from the Tracker screen and can be marked.
If a correct answer is selected, the full mark is awarded by the computer.
If incorrect, a mark of zero is awarded.
During a test
if a Multiple Choice item has no mark it is treated as a practice
question. In this case, the prescribed type of feedback is given to
the student. Feedback is disabled for a Multiple Choice item if it
has a mark.
A Fill-in item presents text
and may play sound or show a graphic. The student is required to fill
in one or more highlighted blanks with the correct answers.
The computer is capable of deciding the correctness of the student's
answer. This item is visible from the Tracker screen and can be marked.
If a correct answer is entered, the full mark is awarded by the computer.
If incorrect, a mark of zero is awarded.
During a test
if the question has no mark it is treated as a practice question.
In this case, the prescribed type of feedback is given to the student.
Feedback is disabled for a Fill-in item if it has a mark.
The Writing item is used to require a written response, either in the form of a dictation or a question.
It may contain sound and graphics.
The student is asked to type an answer to the question. The text is available to the instructor through the Tracker and may be
marked.
When the text cursor is on an item that
item is the selected item. (in this case the 'verify' lesson)
The cursor keys can be used to move the text cursor around the plan.
The text cursor can also be moved by clicking the mouse at the new
text cursor position.
The PgUp and PgDn keys move the text cursor to the left
page and right page respectively. The scroll bar at the bottom of the
screen has similar results.
The type of an item is set by moving the text cursor to the type field
of an item and entering the type letter (I, T, E, S, V, C, R, A, M, W or F).
A blank can also be entered. Blank items are not shown to the student.
The Tag is entered in the 14 characters after the type field.
The mark is a number from 1 to 9 which is entered in the mark field.
The mark is erased by entering a 0.
Characters may be erased by pressing the backspace key.
To record for the selected item, press Record. The Recorder
screen will appear in the appropriate format
for the item. The Exit key in the Recorder screen will return
to the Planner. After information has been recorded the background
of the item will be blue instead of black.
The Insert
key on the keyboard can be used to edit the
lesson plan. Insertions are done before the item selected by the text
cursor.
Deleted items are placed on the insert list. Items on this list can
be recovered later. This list can hold up to 5 items.
A new item can be inserted in front of the selected item
by pressing the Insert key on the keyboard.
The selected item is moved down and a new, blank item is inserted
at the text cursor position.
As an alternative, the accessing the Edit option and selecting
Insert will have the same effect.
The selected item can be deleted by accessing the Edit option
from the menu bar and selecting the Cut option.
An item that is deleted in
this way is placed on the clipboard list. This list contains up to 5
of the latest deleted items.
An item can be inserted in front of the selected item from
the clipboard list by selecting the Edit option on the menu bar and
accessing the Paste selection.
The Paste Window will appear on the screen. By double clicking
on any of the items in the paste window, that item will be inserted into
the plan at the currently selected position.
By clicking on the X, the paste window will be closed.
The selected item can be copied to the insert list by first selecting the item with the blinking cursor, then accessing the
Edit menu from the menu bar and selecting the Copy option
from it.
A group of up to 5 items can be moved to a different location in the
lesson plan by deleting them, which places them on the insert list.
Then they can be inserted at their new location. Repeat as necessary
to move any more items.
This feature can be useful in creating items that are very similar.
For example, a series of Multiple Choice questions that ask how many
syllables there are in a word can be quickly created. Each question
has the same text, so the procedure is to copy the first question
to the insert list.
Then this question
can be repeatedly inserted and the Recorder used to change the sound
and select the correct answer.
However, an item replicated by copying to the insert list and
then pasting it into another planner cell results in the original item
appearing twice in the plan. A student answer for either occurrence
will also appear for the other. To make the items unique the recorder
must be used to edit one or the other and save a change to the item.
The Options menu is accessed from the menu bar. There are four entries in this menu. Each indicates the current state of the following options:
If Slow is on, the student can press
the Slow button and listen to the sound slowed down. This option is selected by default.
If Slow is turned off, the student cannot listen to slowed down sound.
These options determine the order that the items in the plan
are presented to the student. These are applied when the
student is taking the lesson in practice or test modes
(as set in the Tracker screen);
If Menu is checked, the student can select items from the menu. Items can be taken or retaken as many times as the student chooses.
If Sequence is checked, the items in the lesson are presented in sequence until the end of the lesson is reached. Students cannot pick, cannot go back, and in test mode, cannot access items again when the lesson is finished.
If Random is checked, the items in the plan are presented in
random order. The lesson is grouped into pools of items, each separated
by an Instruction item. Within each pool items that require a
student answer (E, S, V, R, A, M, F, W) are selected randomly.
If a teaching point or conversation item appears before the randomly
selected item it is presented to the student before the random item.
A student must answer all the items in a pool. Pressing Next
without answering means the item is still available for random selection.
Once all the all the items in a pool have been answered, the system
proceeds to the pool of items found after the next Instruction
item. in this way, progress is sequential from pool to pool until
the lesson is completed.
Three options are available for feedback
when the student enters an incorrect answer to a Multiple Choice or
Fill-in question. The None option gives the student no indication
of the correctness of the question answered. The Incorrect option
only indicates if the question was correct or incorrect. The Show Answer
also displays the correct answer if the question was answered incorrectly.
The feedback options apply in practice mode.
In test mode they apply only to questions
that have no mark assigned.
If Resize is checked, the student can resize the Player window displaying the lesson. This option is not selected by default as there is the potential for the formatting on a lesson to be distorted in a resized window.
In some languages, the characters required for placing text in questions
and text into blanks for fill in the blank type questions are not available
on a standard keyboard. For this reason, the planner provides a method
of selecting one of several input mechanisms.
In other languages, it is more worthwhile to simply define the keys on the
existing keyboard as different characters. To start this process, select
Keyboard and the sub-option New.
By doing this, an images of a regular English keyboard will appear along
with a selection box. At this point, the keyboard may be changed by pressing
a key on the keyboard image with the mouse, and then clicking on the selection
box and typing in the Hexadecimal, 4 digit unicode number for the
character desired on the key. More information about unicode character
codes may be found at www.unicode.org.
When a keyboard is defined for a lesson, students must enter answers to
Fill or Writing items using the keyboard. When some of these answers use Latin characters it may be more practical to keep the existing keyboard the way it is.
Alternate keyboards may be defined by using the CTRL or ALT and
SHIFT keys in up to eight combinations.
By pressing these keys on the keyboard image, a blank keyboard will appear.
Any characters may be assigned to any key by using the same procedure as
outlined above.
In this case, the key on the keyboard is having unicode character 585b
defined for it. It happens to be a Chinese character as shown above the
code being entered.
A Title can be added to define the keyboard by clicking on the CAN-8 symbol 
in the top left corner of the keyboard and Selecting the Title option. This will bring up a box in in which to enter the title. Titles may have a maximum of eight characters.
Once the definition of keys is complete, it is required to save the
changed keyboard. This is done by clicking the mouse on the CAN-8 symbol in the top left corner of the keyboard and selecting the Save option from the
menu that appears. Once saved, this keyboard is available to the
recorder screens that required text input as well as to students on
questions that require text input by the student.
MASTER may create keyboards in the exact same manner as described above, but may save the keyboard as Global thereby adding the keyboard to those in the Select menu and making it available to all instructors to use as necessary. It is recommended that the MASTER give the keyboard an identifying title before saving it. To save as global the MASTER clicks on the CAN-8 symbol in the top left hand corner of the keyboard box and selects Global from the resulting menu.
If it is required to make changes to a previously defined keyboard,
the Edit option may be selected from the keyboard submenu and the previously created keyboard will be displayed for change.
The system comes with several previously defined keyboards that can be found by clicking Select. This will bring up a pop-up box of approximately a dozen to choose from. These may be used in lessons as
well, or simply selected then edited and saved to make a keyboard more
suitable to the lesson.
Any new global keyboards defined by the MASTER will be found at the bottom of this list.
It is sometimes necessary for students to be able to use both the standard default keyboard and a custom defined keyboard in the same lesson. Selecting Optional will allow the student to make the choice between these keyboards during the lesson.