Saturday, November 21, 2009

CBI Project - Main Menu

I believe I have finished the first part of my project. I have already marked out where the other frames will go with their global buttons. The easy part is complete. Now, on to the harder part - the content and animations that go with it. I plan on putting a 5 question quiz at the end of my project to check the understanding of the students at the end of the instruction. From there, I can determine whether the computer based instruction is helpful for the students or not. I think they will like it.

The projects I have already done in class have inspired me to do more with Flash, from quizzes to animations for language arts, math, social studies, and science.

CBI Title Screen - 1st Revision


I changed the font to Chalkduster since my audience will be 4th graders not adults. Hopefully, it makes it more appealing for young kids to want to click on the enter button.

CBI Title Screen

I am working on the title screen for my CBI project in EDIT 484. I originally had the background as a light blue; however, once I started playing around with the color, the green seemed to make the border and the button pop. In my flowchart, I didn't have a title screen, but I think it's necessary to introduce the topic before choosing the menu options in the next frame. On Tuesday, I scanned a bar magnet at school with wonderful results. I was afraid the magnet might mess up the scanner. To my surprise the scanner was fine and I ended up with a high resolution photo to use in this project. I had thought about drawing the magnets in Flash, but the amount of work to do that across my frames would be enormous. Now I can do the animations with my bar magnet jpeg. It'll be so much easier now.

The border is just scaled down versions of the scanned bar magnet. Fitting all of the pieces together was relatively easy, however, lining up the top to the bottom took a little time. I think the results are what I expected. I like the direction of my project so far. Still, there is a lot of work left to be done. I can at least get a good head start this weekend.

I just realized I may have to make my project slightly bigger than it already is. I already changed the size to 800 x 600.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

CBI Sketch & Flowchart for Final Project

Here is the flowchart and sketch of my frames for my final project. I forgot to add the URLs that will be included in my project. The project is due December 1st. I will have to present the project in front of my EDIT 484 class on that Tuesday. I hope that I can get all of the animations done on time. We are working on the title screen and main menu in tomorrow's class.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Computer Based Instruction Project Outline

I have chosen to do my project on Electricity and Magnetism because we are currently working on this unit of study at school. Since science is usually hands-on, I would like to create a project that has some interactivity in it just like if they were to pick up the real objects for science inquiry. At a later date, I could add more physical science standards based activities to the project. This project is geared toward 4th graders, but could easily be used in the 5th grade based on the fact that they are tested on 4th grade standards on the CSTs.

This project will be benefit students in several ways. One, it will have interactive activities to help students review concepts they have learned in physical science. Second, it will allow them to use computer models to reinforce their learning. Basically, it’s the same learning presented in a different format. It also covers two standards in physical science out of the seven for the unit.

Outline of the Project:

I. Magnetism & Electricity
A. Magnets
1. Different poles like the Earth
2. Attract & repel (animation)
3. Magnetic fields
4. Magnets and the compass (animation)
5. Magnets and other objects

B. Static Electricity
1. positive and negative electrons
2. materials and charges
3. two balloons w/ charges
4. wool on one balloon – change in charge (animation)
5. balloons - repel and attract (animation)


Web Resources

1. http://phet.colorado.edu/simulations/sims.php?sim=Magnet_and_Compass

2. http://phet.colorado.edu/simulations/sims.php?sim=Balloons_and_Static_Electricity

3. http://science.howstuffworks.com/magnet.htm

I actually revised my project. Now it only has magnets as the main idea of my project. I am currently working on some sketches for the layout and the flowchart that I have to turn in by Nov. 15th. I have already decided my buttons will actually be a picture of one of the blue/ red bar magnets that I got from Lakeshore. The layout of the Main Menu screen has already been designed. It's the other frames and animations that will be more difficult to produce. The back, home, and next buttons will also be miniature versions of the main menu buttons.

The next posting will have the flowchart and the sketches for all of my frames I will design.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Project #3 - EDIT 484



Project #3 had us make buttons that would jump to another frame. It was very difficult at first. I must have played around with the code for 4 hours before I finally got it right.

One stumbling block was the 3rd button. I didn't realize when I need to jump to the 4th frame that I needed to add blank frames in between. So frustrating, but now I know. I struggled with the 3rd button in class, too. I learn by doing, so though it was frustrating, I learn a great deal by problem solving on my own.

We had to jump to new frames that talked about us personally. I chose teacher, runner, and traveler. On the jump to frames, I added pictures of myself in those capacities.

The colors remain the blues and yellows. I had fun creating the buttons because they were not standard buttons. I played around with the curve tools and created all my buttons that way. I was even able to create a back button for each frame so it would go back to the beginning. It's a little tiring clicking on Control > Test Movie. This way I could test all of my buttons after only clicking on Control > Test Movie once.

Project #4



It didn't take me very long to figure out how to link buttons to websites. I tried playing around with motion before the button, but that didn't work out too well, so I scrapped that part of my project. Now I am agonizing over the details of the project. I have the buttons I like, however, I am not sure they are right for the project I created. I don't want to go with standard rectangular buttons or oval buttons. I have tried both and they don't look right on the stage. I thought the hardest part was going to be the Action Script for website linking. Surprisingly, it was the easiest part. I even know the websites I am going to use. Blue and yellow seem to be a reoccurring theme in my projects. Am I going through a blue period of work. I've tried many other colors and they don't seem right. I always go back to blue.

I added a television screen like background so it wouldn't be so plain on the edges of the project. I got some inspiration from The Unforgettable Album artwork that has thin lines at the top and the bottom which breaks up the solid colors and the picture. I still have to play around with the middle to make it just right.

Here is a screen shot of my unfinished project. Who knows what the final version will be when I turn it in on Monday night.