In the US most eLearning has been traditionally VERY audio-centric. This approach can work well in slide-based eLearning, but I don't think it's suited to the more modern web-like experiences we've been creating with Adapt. I'm working on a project now that makes extensive use of videos with animations -- so the audio is still there, but concentrated in those bits rather than narrating every screen/component. From a design perspective, it makes us more thoughtful about when it really is appropriate to use audio.  

I think that providing an audio option to learners is an excellent way to personalize & accommodate learners' preferences as well as to ensure m-learning meets accessibility standards.

M-learning design that does not anticipate and meet the needs of learners with all sorts of challenges and preferences to my way of thinking only does half the job. For example, heavy reliance on visuals & images (icons, logos, etc.) to guide the learning experience is great shorthand for sighted learners, but is not nearly so helpful for people who don't see well and who could benefit from an audio caption equivalent. Also many text-to-speech readers don't read slides or jpgs. On the other hand, an adult learner who is familiar with content or doing a review may find it faster and more effective to hear (esp. if the speed can be bumped up) rather than re-read all the text content. Finally, although high level designers with access to experienced media and graphics/animations teams may have moved beyond slides & narration, many of your everyday teachers and instructors who will want to use Adapt to get their content into a responsive online format will have not. They need a tool that will enhance and complement what they already do and to help them move towards effective blended learning. Audio should be a big part of that. 

I think rather than dropping audio, it would be more helpful to make it easier to integrate it into the overall design of a course. (BTW: the same goes for text captioning of visual elements and videos.) The more options for getting learner involved with content, the better. I don't feel this flies in the face of the 'redundacy' caveat in e-learning but instead provides learners with ways to make a course fit their needs and wants. 

P.S. I did a fully online Master's degree, was a high school & adult ed. teacher for 35 years, have developed and moderated e-professional development mini-MOOCs for other educators, and am now struggling to design a collection of open source basic skill development apps. I'm eagerly awaiting the release of the Authoring Tool.

Does/will it have an html block so one can develop content using another tool (such as Hot Potatoes or GeoGebra), grab the code, and integrate it directly into an Adapt Learning framework? 

Hi all,

I am new to Adapt so I am experimenting with the Framework to gain more experience and learn new things.

HTML 5 offers a great variety of Media Types (Audio, Videos, Animations, SVGs …) that can be added natively to a web content. Depending on the use cases using and combining these Elements will drastically increase the experience for the learners. However, using all of them at once will probably be too much for the users.

I developed a component that plays a list of Audio-Files and displays a text label for each Audio-Track. Since Adapt does recognise when a component is in the Viewport, I wanted to use this feature to play the Audio automatically.

Here is the Demo and below is what I have learned about playing Audios / Videos automatically:

• Add a delay:
  I think starting to play the content immediately when the component is in the viewport is a bad pattern. Imagine the user wants to scroll through the whole course and every audio component screams at her.
• Show feedback to the user:
  Combine the delay with a visual representation of the current state. So that the user has time to understand what is going on.
• Give the user the ability to control the behaviour of the Component:
  The user should always have full control over the content. So make sure that she can stop the autoplay mode and play the audio at any time.
• Make sure that only one Audio/Media Component is playing at a time:
  This is extremely crucial for long scrolling pages that can include multiple instances of Audio- and Video-Components. Imagine the user scrolls through the entire page at once and every component starts to play! So make sure that your components tell each other if they are playing and when they are done or paused.

To sum up:

I think that playing Audios automatically can increase the experience and convenience for your learners. Think about the right triggers and make sure to test.

Please share your thoughts with me. Any feedback is highly welcome!

Thanks,

Thomas

Disclaimer: the component is still a draft, so it might be buggy

Hi Sven - 

Exult has been providing components to their clients with audio. We are also modifying the core components to meet the audio requirements for most of our clients who need audio in their courses. Some of these modified components are on GitHub. We will add more as we develop.

The audio playing is managed with the "inView", where if the component comes inView we autoplay the audio and if it goes out of view or scrolled out, the audio is stopped. On devices we have a audio button which is used to play the audio.

Apart from modifying the core components we also are using the iFrame for loading custom animations created in Adobe Edge which have audio in them. The edge animations work on desktop and ipads (tablets) & on phones we change the animations to narrative component making it easier for the learner to navigate with minimal content on screen.

Hope this would help.

Thanks!

Regards,

Aniket