Hi Mandy

In my mind an interactive Word Document, is one which uses such things
as text boxes to create an interactive handout

The Ferl site has numerous examples
http://www.ferl.org.uk/display.cfm?page=13&resID=3614
http://www.ferl.org.uk/display.cfm?page=21&typeID=17&resID=5175

Plus sections on how to
Word http://www.ferl.org.uk/display.cfm?page=127
Excel http://www.ferl.org.uk/display.cfm?page=137
PowerPoint http://www.ferl.org.uk/display.cfm?page=132

There are also numerous training sessions available as well

Contentious Point (look away now)

And I personally believe that this is not a good thing, and no
institution should be encouraging staff to create or use them... as they
are not IMS compliant and most (now going on-topic) will not sit within
an VLE and work through a browser (which means you need to download
them, which means you need to know how to change your browser settings
to download rather than open, all technical stuff...

There are also issues relating to end-user (especially if they are an
user at home); can we expect learners to purchase MS Office Professional
(even the academic version)?

(I haven't checked) but do versions created in Office XP work okay on
Office 97 for example? Do they work on OpenOffice(Windows or Linux
versions)? I know they don't work on Lotus Smartsuite!!! And most
certainly do not work on Office for the Mac.

I know that they are popular with ILT Champions (partly if you have a
modicum of Word skills they are relatively easy to create (I actually
find some of them very difficult to do as an end-user)

My personaly opinion is don't go near them....

Professionally I will allow people to make a choice, but they need to
make an informed choice.

James Clay
Director Western Colleges Consortium
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
www.westerncc.ac.uk





-----Original Message-----
From: Virtual Learning Environments [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Mandy Phillips
Sent: 07 May 2003 09:56
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Creating IMS compliant material


Hi James,

Excuse my ignorance, but could you expand on what you mean by an
'interactive word and excel file'.

Thanks,

Mandy.

>>> [log in to unmask] 05/07 9:43 am >>>
Nigel's links are useful

It can be useful to to put it in simple terms, an IMS compliant learning
object should "sit" within any IMS compliant Learning Management System
(ie VLE); so that using a TekniCAL tool I can create a learning object
which will sit on Blackboard, or using Microsoft LRN I can convert a
PowerPoint presentation into an IMS compliant learning object and sit it
on TekniCAL's Virtual Campus.

All the NLN materials are IMS compliant.

Why should you do all this, well if you want your learning object to be
tracked, or to record assessment, then you want it to be IMS compliant.

Also it helps to future-proof any learning objects you (and your staff
create)

Contentious Point (look away now)

This is also why I personally believe that interactive Word and Excel
files are a huge mistake and no institution should be encouraging staff
to create or use them... as they are not IMS compliant.

James Clay
Director Western Colleges Consortium
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
www.westerncc.ac.uk

<snip>

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