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Authors need to provide a lot of information and structure to build an
INDIE GBS:
- Domain elements: This includes a domain (such as geology, pet
care, etc.) that has been broken down into tests, results of tests in
response to various possible scenarios, potential ASK questions and
answers, and evidence points for those ASK answers (if needed). They
need to know how they want to cross-link this data together, combining
questions and answers, results and questions, and tests and responses.
- Teaching points: Authors need to understand what skills
they want their students to learn. In Volcano, the skill is volcano
prediction through scientific testing. Authors also need to know what
other related knowledge students should learn. In Volcano, authors
are trying to teach basic volcanology, with incidental knowledge about
plate tectonics, the dangers (and excitement) of volcanoes, and how
volcanologists deal with real people. Although these teaching points
aren't directly entered into the tool, it is certainly necessary to
have these points in mind during the design of the GBS.
- Fictional elements: Authors need to pick a scenario that
students can get involved in. This is influenced by what is both
exciting (e.g. volcano prediction) and pedagogically useful (e.g.
diagnosing a tricky immune system case). They need to populate their
scenario with characters (usually on videotape), props for the student
to work with (such as testing apparatuses and volcanoes), and evidence
points referring to their specific scenario. Many projects have more
than one scenario.
- Interface information: Authors need to plan what kinds of
buttons, menus, and other interface widgets they will use what what
those widgets will do. This planning usually starts as drawings of
screens and progresses to ideas about exactly what each interface
element does when pressed or otherwise manipulated in different
circumstances.
- Art: Most GBSes built in INDIE are art-heavy--each screen
has a different background, each button has one to three pictures, and
most GBSes need charts and graphs to explain test results and help
students find their way through the ASK system.
- Video: Every GBS created with INDIE so far has included
digitized video. This can be produced with any video camera, from a
simple 8mm camera to professional Betacam shoots with paid actors.
Video accounts for the vast majority of the disk space INDIE projects
take up; Rembrandt has nearly 4 gigabytes of digital movies.
Next: Interacting with the tool
Up: GBS Tools Defined
Previous: GBS Tools Defined
Wolff Dobson
1998-07-28