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The Planner



About the Planner

The Planner is where the layouts for the activities are designed and their content created. This Section of the Reference Manual addresses all the steps necessary for the creation of an activity, for either practice or evaluation purpose.
It covers the different types of items that can be created, how to create them, the media that can be included in each of them, and the different settings that can be applied to these items to change their behaviour.

For clarity purposes, we have defined the following words in this manual as:

  • Planner is the function that allows you to create an activity.
  • Activity refers to the final product, such as a activity or a test. It includes a list of items or exercises.
  • Item refers to an element such as an exercise, which will be presented to the students and may require an answer,
  • Content is the media added to an item such as text, audio, images.
  • The menu layout or plan is the visual organization or grouping of items in the activity�s menu.

This Section of the Planner's manual addresses all the steps necessary for the creation of a activity plan, for either practice or evaluation purpose. It covers the different types of items that can be created, how to create them, the information that can be included in each of them, how to enter or import the data, and the different settings that can be applied to these items to change the exercise behaviour.

Before You Start

Adding the New Activity in the Menu

The System Supervisor (Master ID) is the only user who can add a new activity to the menu. When instructors wish to create a new activity, they must first contact the System Supervisor, specify the activity�s title and its location in the main system menu.
This new entry can be placed in the Instructor's menu while it is being worked on to prevent students from accessing it until it is ready. Once completed, the system supervisor can move it to the students' menu. Alternatively, the new activity can also be created directly in the students' menu and set to Wait to Start until it is ready to be published. As soon as the menu entry is added, the instructor can enter the Planner and proceed with building the plan.
As soon as the menu entry is added, the instructor can enter the Planner and proceed with building the plan.

Preparing for Recording

It is worthwhile creating quality recordings. In order to ensure that the recordings are the best possible, the following instructions are suggested.

  • Always use a good quality microphone.
  • Ensure the environment you are recording in is quiet.
  • Place the microphone as far as possible from the computer to minimize noise from fans or other devices.
  • While recording, observe the volume graph and ensure that the sound shows approximately three quarters of the total height of the graph.
  • Review and edit the recording to minimize pauses and noises at the beginning and end.


Getting the material ready

If you plan to import audio files or images, make sure they are in the correct format and located in a convenient place to speed up the import process. Having these files in an easily accessible folder will simplify the steps.

  • Audio files formats must be .mp3, .wav, .wma
  • The images should be .jpg or .bmp with a maximum size of 240 H x 320W


The Layout

It is important to get familiar with the Planner's interface before you start authoring. The Planner interface resides within the main interface. Which means that some of the tool bars you will see belong to the general interface and are always displayed, from the moment you sign in, while some will belong to the planner only and are displayed only when you open the Planner.

The Function Bar

The Function Bar is part of the general interface and is available at all time. Every time you open an activity in any mode (Planner, Player, and/or Tracker) a corresponding tab will show in the Function Bar. This allows you to toggle between 2 activities or 2 functions.

Function bar

It is therefore important to be able to identify each tab right away, to avoid any confusion or delays.

To help you identify your Planner, each tab shows:

The title
Function tab
In this illustration, the activity is named Leave/Live.
The function
Tab icon Planner icon
The icon located on the left of the tab identifies the function (mode) of that activity. This icon represents a Planner tab. It is a smaller simplified version of the Planner icon located in the Tool bar of the main interface.
The tab's satus
Tab active

Tab inactive
A blue tab indicates that it is active. This is the planner currently displayed on your screen. There can only be one blue tab.

A grey tab indicates that although this planner is open, it is inactive. If you wish to display this Planner to add or edit an item, you must first click on this tab to activate it. The tab will become blue and the content of the Planner will be displayed. There can be up to 6 inactive tabs in your Tab Bar.

The Tool Bar

The Tool Bar is always visible as part of the general CAN-8 interface. It allows access to the different activity modes. The icons in the Tool Bar are shortcuts to the main functions of CAN-8. They are linked to:

Tool bar Displays the main menu and its entries to select a function or an activity
The Player or student program - to play an existing activity as the students will see it
The Tracker or monitoring screen - used to monitor students' progress through an activity
The Planner or authoring screen - to design and create activities
The Phone to contact online students.

The Planner's Interface

It includes

  • The Planner Tab Bar, where up to 8 tabs can be displayed.
  • The Tree Menu, where the list of items forming the activity is displayed.
  • The Work Area, where text, images and video can be placed.
  • The Volume Display, where the graphic representation of the recorded or imported sound will be shown.
  • The Audio control buttons
Planner interface

NOTES

It is important to be familiarized with the layout of this interface and the names that have been given to each area of the Planner as they will be referred to all along this chapter.

....

1. The Planner Tab Bar

The Planner tab bar is located below the Function bar, right above the Work Area.

When a Planner is first opened, the Planner tab bar is empty. As the items are being created and edited, tabs (up to a maximum of 8) are added.

Each item tab shows the item's title and the icon corresponding to the item's type.

Item tab Grey tabs correspond to items that are open but not displayed.
item tab active When the content of an item is displayed in the work area, the tab becomes active and turns orange.

Below is an illustration of a Planner being edited

Function and item tabs


The upper bar shown is the Function Bar. In this example, the instructor opened simultaneously the Player (student screen), the Tracker and the Planner of the activity named Leave/Live. The active tab (highlighted blue) indicates that this activity is opened in Planner mode (or editing mode).

The bar below is the Planner Tab Bar. 8 tabs are present, each corresponding to one item being edited. In this example, each item is of the same type as indicated by the icon in the tabs. The tab highlighted orange is the active tab and corresponds to the item currently displayed in the work area

A maximum of eight items can be simultaneously opened for editing. The Planner Tab Bar will therefore display up to eight tabs only.

Too many tabs error When attempting to open more than eight tabs, a system warning will show. Select OK in the warning window, and then close one or more tabs in order to open a new one.

NOTES

  • To toggle between items, click on the corresponding tab recognizable by its name.
  • To close a tab, click on it to highlight it and then select the Exit button at the far right of the Planner Tab Bar. Repeat these steps for each tab you wish to close.
...

2. The Tree menu

The tree menu displays the layout of the activity and allows navigation through the activity's items.

When the Planner is first opened, this menu is empty. As items are added, their title, their type and the mark assigned (if applicable) are displayed, as illustrated.

Planner menu
  • Type The type of each item (represented by a unique icon) specifies the purpose of the item, its presentation, and what is required of the student.
  • Title The title of an item contains 14 characters. This title is used to name the item in the menu of the student player and in the activity's Tracker.
  • Mark Items may be assigned a mark of 1 to 10 using their Properties box. Not all items require a mark or can be marked. Introduction, Teach and Conversation items cannot since they require no input from the students.

NOTES

  • Empty items listed in the Planner menu will not show in the students' menu.
  • As the Planner is being created or edited, you may notice that the title and background colour of the items, in the tree menu and in the tab, change colour. This is meant as a visual help while editing a Planner but does not require to be memorized.
    TEXT COLOUR: GREEN : Open item - has not been changed.
    RED : Open Item - has been changed.
    TEXT BACKGROUND COLOUR:  : Saved without changes.
     : Saved with changes.
     : Empty item.

...

3.The Work Area

The work area is where the content (text, graphics, videos) will be added or edited.

Planner Work Area

Work areas may differ in appearance depending on the item type. Certain item types may not show all areas.

4. The Volume Graph


The volume graph displays the graph of the audio that has been recorded or imported in the exercise. It includes:

Volume Graph

cursor   A red cursor:

The cursor moves through the volume graph as the sound plays. You can click anywhere on the sound graph to move the cursor and play the audio from that point forward. For editing purpose, this is used to synchronize the text with the sound, to edit or snip part of the sound.

Volume Graph    The graph

It is the graphic representation of the sound. This allows the user to visualize breaks in the sound for editing purpose. The vertical axis represents the loudness. Care should be taken when recording or importing sounds that the height of the green bars does not exceed or touch the first blue line from the top of the graph to avoid noises unrelated to the actual audio.

The volume graph may be used to:

  • to synchronize sound and text
  • to snip audio
  • to set the timers


Counter A counter display.

It indicates the position in seconds of the red cursor within the audio graph.



The volume graph buttons    Volume Buttons

They are highlighted blue when active. You can either click on them or use the keyboard function keys.



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416 968 7155 ext.502
Toll Free in North America:
1 855 305 9937 ext.502

support@can8.com

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