Hi all,
I want to draw some attention to the Multiple Search block developed by Jan Dierckx at the OLV institute in Belgium. I find it a fantastic functionality from a usability point of view
. I image that a student in my courses can double click on (or select) any difficult word and then choose in which database (be it external, like Wikipedia, or internal like our in-house on-line dictionary) (s)he would like to search for an explanation/translation. No need to copy the word, surf to the database, paste the word and search.
The block would allow teachers to guide their students to useful databases that they (in this Google world) otherwise might not utilise.
However, the block is still under development. So far it only works on the page to which the block has been added (typically the course page, which itself usually does not contain study texts). If anyone of you has any suggestions as to how the functionality could be extended to resource pages and books (which normally contain the majority of study text), I would love to hear about it.
Rgrds,
Paul.