Forum Higher Ed & Training Forum: Define in monitor question

By: Neal Hirsig

[ Reply | Forward ]

Playing around with this further, it seems that there really is no reason to set “define in monitor” in the properties panel of an activity. It is possible to add content and instructions to an activity in the monitor panel regardless of check-marking the “define in monitor” or not. I just place a stop gate in the sequence to prevent the students from accessing the activity until I am ready to add the content to the particular activity.

I guess this leaves me with the question: What does “define in monitor” mean? By default the stop, branching and grouping activities are all defined in the monitor and do not have this checkbox in the properties panel. What is the “define in monitor” checkbox refer to with all of the other activities (like notebook, noticeboard forum….)?

Posted by Neal Hirsig

By: Ernie Ghiglione

[ Reply | Forward ]

> What does "define in monitor" mean? By default the stop, branching and grouping activities are all defined in the monitor and do not have this checkbox in the properties
> panel. What is the “define in monitor” checkbox refer to with all of the other activities (like notebook, noticeboard forum….)?

Define in monitor attempts to provide a solution to change content on the fly to ensure that *all* students doing the lesson get consistent content.

Although you might be able to change the content after some students have passed a Q&A, this might be confusing if the teacher adds more questions to the activity after half of the students have finished the activity. While some might have got just the original questions, the rest would have either different questions or new questions all together.

So "define in monitor" gives the teacher the option to stop the students *before* they enter the activity, so he/she can set up the appropriate content and then allow consistent content for all students.

True, it is possible to do the same if you would put a stop point in front of the activity that you might modify. However, this stop point is visible by all students in the class and that might be a bit confusing as they might not know exactly why you are stopping them at that stage.

But yes, a stop point before the activity pretty much does the same thing.

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: Ernie Ghiglione

[ Reply | Forward ]

Hi Neal,

The idea of "Define Later" is that if for some reason you need to modify the content of a particular activity you can do it *before* the students get to it.

This is a good feature to have if for example you aren't sure if the questions you have in an assessment tool would be too easy or too hard... because perhaps you are not so sure of your audience.

As you point out, if an activity is set as define in later, then from Monitor the teacher can access it and set its content. Until the teacher finishes saving the content, the students won't be able to access the activity.

The moment that the teacher *saves* the content in the activity, then the "define later" flag for the students is lifted and they can enter the activity.

Thanks,

ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: Neal Hirsig

[ Reply | Forward ]

Hi Ernie

Thank you so much! I see now.

In effect, it works kind of like having a stop gate without having to add one to the sequence (Although the stop gate allows me to let selected individuals through to the next step).

Posted by Neal Hirsig

By: Ernie Ghiglione

[ Reply | Forward ]

> In effect, it works kind of like having a stop gate without having to add one to the sequence

Precisely.

> (Although the stop gate allows me to let selected individuals through to the next step).

If that's what you want to do.

Which reminds me that in LAMS 2.3, we introduced "conditional gates" that open if students gets/attains a result (or condition). For instance you can specify that the gate will only open if the student gets 7 or more points in previous assessment activity.. or open if the student "has posted X number of words in the forum" or "has voted for XYZ option in a vote" or "has said the words 'apple' but not 'orange' in a Q&A activity", etc, etc.. this gives you really powerful flow control conditions.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione