CHOOSEIT! MAKER 2 TRAINING MANUAL CHOOSEIT! MAKER 2 TRAINING DAY. Damien O Keefe 1

Transcription

1 CHOOSEIT! MAKER 2 TRAINING DAY Damien O Keefe 1

2 ChooseIt! Maker 2 is an open framework program designed to help you make choosing activities that can be accessed with switches (1 or 2), touch-screens (Interactive Whiteboards) as well as the mouse and keyboard. The program is simple to use and leads you through the process of making activities in a series of small easy to follow steps. In terms of task difficulty the activities associated with this program are slightly more advanced then both SwitchIt! Maker 2 and Slideshow Maker 2. Making A New Activity Open the program and choose New Activity. You need to give each new activity a name. Do this by typing it into the box as shown on the left. You can also write a short note / description about the activity. Choose a folder to store your new activity. You will access this folder when you want to use the activity later. When you have given your activity a name, click Ok. Currently the folders are called group1, group2, group 3, group4 and sample but these can be renamed to suit you in the main menu which is shown on the left. To do this you need to hold down the CTRL key and click them with the mouse. Damien O Keefe 2

3 The next step is to choose an appropriate layout for the first page of your activity. You can choose either two, three, four or six boxes. Remember your audience when making an activity. Children with severe or profound leaning difficulties may only be able to choose from two or three options. Know who you are making your activities for and ensure it meets their particular needs. Remember that you can always have blank choice boxes. Click Ok when you have made your selection. If you want to use words or phrases, simply click the writing button. A keyboard will be displayed on the screen. Now type, click or touch the letters of the word or phrase you want to use and click done when you are finished. The screen on the left displays your chosen layout. Click on one of the boxes and it will be highlighted in yellow. As you can see the highlighted box in the screen on the left is the first box. This means that we are working on that specific choice box. Now you need to decide if the box is to include a picture, word or sound. If you wish to include a picture, click picture. A browser window like the one below will open allowing you to search your computer for the relevant picture. The screen to the left shows what a box would look like with writing added while the screen above shows what a box would look like with a picture added. Damien O Keefe 3

4 You can also add sound to a box. Any sounds recorded into boxes will be played when either the mouse moves over the box or when it is scanned for use with switches. This can be a useful way to add voice feedback for a switch user or for a child with visual impairment. It can also be a useful way of prompting / guiding the student through a question, for instance, if your question is Find a dog?, then the choice box could be made to play a bark when it is scanned or when the mouse pointer is over it. You have two options when inserting sound you can either Load sound from disk or Record with microphone. If you click the Load sound from disk button a window will pop-up similar to the one below. This will allow you to search your computer to find your sound file. You can also try for sound effects which can be saved to your computer. If you click the Record with microphone button you will see three buttons at the bottom of your screen like those shown on the screen on the left. To record sounds on your computer you will need a microphone. Ensure it is plugged in and working. When you are ready, click the Record button and speak into the microphone. When you are finished speaking, click Stop. You can preview your recording by clicking the Play button. If you need to rerecord your sound simply repeat the process. When you are ready to move on, click Ok. Once you have added the pictures, words and sounds to your choice boxes, click Done to move to the next stage. The screen to the left shows what it would look like if you decided to add three pictures to your choice boxes. Damien O Keefe 4

5 Now you need to decide what will happen when the different boxes are chosen. More than likely your activity will be asking questions so you need to decide which boxes will contain the correct answer. In the example shown on the left we have three animals displayed on the screen and the question will be Find the dog?. To select the correct answer simply click the picture. In this case it will be the first picture, the dog. A tick will appear on the box/es you have selected. Remember you can have more than one correct answer, for example you may have an activity with six choice boxes, three of which have water animals and three of which are land animals. If the question was Which animal lives in water?, we would click all the water animals. When you have chosen the correct answer, click Done. The screen on the left is the next screen that will appear and it will ask you if you want to add a written instruction to the page. If you wish to add an instruction or a question, click Yes. An on-screen keyboard will pop-up like the one below. Use the on-screen keyboard or type directly from the keyboard to input your questions. In the example below it will be Find the dog?. Remember that you can change the size of the text by clicking the t located on the left of the page. When you are ready to move on, click Done. The next screen will allow you to record the question so the computer can read it back. This process is exactly the same as when you recorded sounds into your choice boxes. You can either Load sound from disk or Record with microphone. If you wish to record with a microphone use the record, stop and play buttons until you are satisfied with your recording then click, Ok to move to the next stage. Damien O Keefe 5

6 The next step is to decide on the reward the child will receive if they answer the question correctly. The screen on the left shows this. By default, ChooseIt! Maker 2 will play music and show a colourful animation. However, you have the option to change this if you wish to make the reward sound match the question or even a sound which the child finds motivating. To do this you are presented with the same two options as before: Load sound from disk or Record with microphone. If you don t want to make any changes to the reward sounds, click No. Congratulations! You have made your first page in a ChooseIt! Maker 2 activity. When you click the Ok button you will be taken to the screen below where you have a range of options. If you have finished with the activity you can simply press the X button and you will be taken back to the main screen. You can also Change this page or Add new page. Damien O Keefe 6

7 SETTINGS To play created activities simply open ChooseIt! Maker 2 and select Play activity. You will be taken to the screen below where you can select a folder to choose your activity. When you have selected a folder you will see a screen similar to the one on the left which will display all the activities from that particular folder. From here you can select activities to play by ticking them and clicking the play button. The Rewards option allows you to do a number of things. You can choose if the reward will have music and animation. Here you can also decide how many seconds the reward will be displayed on the screen. The Colour option allows you to change the background and text colours used on the page. This is useful when working with students who have a visual impairment. You can also change the colour of the highlighted box that appears over the choice boxes in your activity. Damien O Keefe 7

8 This screen shows the Prompt settings. Here you have the option of including a picture of the target choice beside the questions. In the screen below the question is Find the dog?. Obviously, in this case the target choice is the picture of the dog. In this case I have selected Yes to the first option which will now display a picture of the dog beside the question. The prompt settings screen also allows you to add a button on the screen to play the question s sound or speech again. By default this option is set to Yes. The SWITCH ACCESS, SCAN SPEED and DELAY Settings The Switch Access, Scan Speed and Delay settings are important if you are working with switch uses. To access this settings click the appropriate tab. The screen to the right is the Switch Access settings page. Here you have three options. If you wish to use the activity with a mouse / touch screen / interactive whiteboard select the first option. If you would like to use a single switch / space bar / mouse button to start and stop the scanning you need to select the middle option. Finally if you wish to use two switch scanning you need to select the last option. Two switch scanning allows one switch to scan or move and the other to select the correct answer. The left switch, space bar or left-hand mouse button will all scan / move through choices. Conversely the right switch, Return key or righthand mouse button will all select an answer. Damien O Keefe 8

9 The Scan Speed setting is associated with the single switch option above. Here you can determine how often the scanner moves between locations. Students with severe or profound learning difficulties take longer to process things so setting a longer duration between scans would be beneficial. The Delay settings page is shown on the left. This allows you to set the amount of time the switch must be held down before it is recognised as intentional. This is a useful setting for a student who over taps a switch or mouse. Damien O Keefe 9

10 Editing and Managing an Activity To edit an activity simply click the edit button. The screen below shows the options you have available. If you click Edit the Activity button you will be taken to the screen on the left. From here you have a number of options: Add new page, Play Page, Change this page and if there are more than page in the activity Go to next page. If you click the Sort the pages button you will be taken to the screen below. This allows you to rearrange the pages in your activity. If you click the manage button you will have several options to choose from including: Delete this activity, Rename Activity, Export this Activity, Duplicate Activity and Print this activity. Damien O Keefe 10