new InsertText tag for the editor

new InsertText tag for the editor

от Jaime Alamo -
Number of replies: 11
When giving feedback to your students, in essays, journals, dialogues, ... have you ever got to write the same sentences again and again? Or are they always different?

In my case, I'm in the middle. Once and again, students require help in the same topics. They get stopped in their tasks because of the same problems. That´s because we have designed a path for their learning practise to find and solve those problems. So I have a set of files with the answers I've given previously to other students; from which I can copy and paste into the feedback area. But, each time, I have to adjust them to the actual context. Nevertheless, I found such pre-formatted sentences very practical to get high efficiency in my feedback comments.

Or generalizing, Had you ever have had the need to write many times or the more or less the same sentences?

I'm working on a new InsertText tag inserttext for the editor. You can enter into my test server: Gattaca, in an htmlarea in the forum or in any essay module activities. (as teacher user: developer pass: developer)

You'll find you can select files from the course (common to all teachers) or from your own personal folder; both located in the server. It works in both moodles 1.4.3 and 1.5

It works perfectly for txt and html files but not for rtf files sad. Gifs are inserted as textbig grin. I've not checked the buttons at the botton of the popup window.

There is still a lot of work to do, but may be a good time to get your feedback and suggestionswink. I want to add a browser for files in user's computer and, maybe, texts imported from xml files ( to the database ...?) but first, for this last, I have to tearn to handle xlm files. Perhaps, also it would be useful to have the ability to suck text from the actual htmlArea to re-use it later.

Please, I wait for your comments.
Attachment InsetText.jpg
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In reply to Jaime Alamo

Re: new InsertText tag for the editor

от Jaime Alamo -
After pressing OK  you gets:

Attachment InsetText_result.jpg
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In reply to Jaime Alamo

Re: new InsertText tag for the editor

от Jaime Alamo -
One thing I would like to have ready for the InsertText is a lot of encouraging sentences.  I think,  it's  very important to rise the constructivism level of students implication.  So I´ll appreciate your contributions.   These universal sentences could be present by default.
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In reply to Jaime Alamo

Re: new InsertText tag for the editor

от N Hansen -
It would be helpful if the teacher had some way of highlighting feedback they have given to a certain student and being able to add it to the pool of feedback.

Another issue to think about is the best way to be able to find the feedback the teacher wants. Should there be a searchable database, that the teacher can search by keyword? Should the responses be put into categories? Should the possible responses be displayed all together on a page so the teacher can choose from them? Just some ideas. I'm sure you will get other useful feedback from people on this feature.
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In reply to N Hansen

Re: new InsertText tag for the editor

от Jaime Alamo -
hi here again N,

for your first sentence -> Yes. That was why I said: Perhaps, also it would be useful to have the ability to suck text from the actual htmlArea to re-use it later.

for your second paragraph -> I think, the most important thing will be to find the feedback very quickly. If not it will be useless.

After that, there can be categories for universal sentences, other for specific topics, .... But I need two things: 1. your discussions about the plurality of situations a teacher would use this feature and 2. to get ready more knowledge on the moodle-mysql-xml triangle.
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In reply to Jaime Alamo

Re: new InsertText tag for the editor

от Josep M. Fontana -
I think this is potentially a very useful feature. The problem I see with it is that it inserts the text right in the middle of the other text that is being revised or commented on, thus making it difficult to differentiate between the two texts.

The ideal solution would be to find a way to combine this function with a system similar to the notes used in some word processors, i.e. the student would simply see a little icon next to the word or the paragraph commented on by the teacher and would be able to read the teacher's comment by clicking on this icon. Otherwise the added text can become very intrusive in the flow of the essay.

Josep M.
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In reply to Josep M. Fontana

Re: new InsertText tag for the editor

от Jaime Alamo -
Hi Josep,

I'm afraid, you haven't understood entirely how it works. This feature works in any htmlArea. If you are in it, you have the right to write and modify it.

If you are thinking in feeding-back students' works (assignments, journals, essays (my essays), dialogues, ... ), remember that their texts do not appear in htmlAreas. If you enter in my testing site, see above, you´ll see that InsertText works on the feedback area only, not on the written Essay, because this is not in an htmlArea editable area. (in my site I´m changing all feedback plain-text areas into htmlAreas following the Janne's guidance that gave me in other post)

I agree with you about the insertion of icons. I thought about markicons (similar to emoticons) having attached small popups controlled by javascript that show up when the student points them with the cursor. Popups could contain the feedback itself, or the reference to it. Students would be able to set it down but not to remove it (to help teachers when reentering). I have still some doubts, but all this is a work of a different kind (extraordinarily funny to use and program) as it would have to work directly in the student's Essay. Normal feedback area would still be aside, as some comments are general and not assignable to particular points.

Other possibility would be to put just a background with different colours to the text, like this or specially designed (stripped ? is it possible?) .

I'm eagle to every suggestion and help you can give me.
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In reply to Jaime Alamo

Re: new InsertText tag for the editor

от Lorena de la Flor -

Hi there,

That feature you are talking about could be also useful to add templates to the html.

I mean, you have your button of "template" that allows you to choose from different files that have html code with text of the style "add your text here". You choose one of them an the html code is inserted in the point where your mouse was. After that you only have to change the text and images but you have a nicely formatted paragraph, with the correct styles.

Examples for templates: photoLeft_text, 2columns, ...

Have you already done part of the feature you are talking about here? If the answer is yes, please, attach it here so I can reuse it to match it to the functionality I am explaining.

Thank you!

Lorena.

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In reply to Lorena de la Flor

Re: new InsertText tag for the editor

от Jaime Alamo -
Hi Lorena,

Certainly, templates can be inserted as any other file (txt, html, ...) using the inserttext code.

Not many teachers can program javascript, nor are able to update modules in a moodle server. Also, templates may be something very personal.
In my opinion, only those templates providing a generally needed format and/or time saving construction should go to command bar in the editor. Have you a testing site to see how it works your template tag?

Using the insertext, any teacher (or any user, if requested) can have, ready to use, templates as fragments of html code. These files can be stored in the "course file folder" shared by all teachers or in his "personal folder" as seen above. They can be easily be modified, uploaded, shared or not (depending on the folder to which it had be uploaded).

The insertext is very useful widely.

Now, files in users' computer can be inserted indirectlysad after having uploaded them to the server. But, I want to add the capacity to insert them directly. (this term, I have very little time for programming, but I hope this will not last too much)


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In reply to Jaime Alamo

Re: new InsertText tag for the editor

от Jaime Alamo -
In order to expand my InsertText to include files in the user's computer, I've been looking for the way to  programme it.

I've found very unusual to handle local files in Javascript unless they are images.  I find that Text files can be sent through internet but not displayed in local user monitor!      Am I missing something?
 
The ways I've found to program it are very different in mozilla and in IE and seem not widely useful. 

Has anybody got this feature working or does know of a page in which it is working?

Any idea?
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In reply to Jaime Alamo

Re: new InsertText tag for the editor

от Diane Yeager -
Hi, I went to  your test site, I was not sure of how to see the insert tags that You are talking about. I am very interested in seeing your code for this module. I would like to try to use this for a template for a guided essay.
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In reply to Diane Yeager

Re: new InsertText tag for the editor

от Jaime Alamo -
Hi Diane,

These days I have a lot of work with the final examinations. Then, I'll go on again with programming tasks and I'll adapt it to the current moodle version 1.5 stable and put it in the contrib folder.

Certainly, it saves a lot of typing inserting html templates. Very useful for teachers. Maybe, not interesting for students, but it is a help in any case.

I'll post a message when uploaded.
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