ELearning Approaches

english mobile

I'm trying to get my head around the best way to use Flex for eLearning, and I'm truly having to start with the basics. The average computer based course has an interface which may show some front matter, usually shows a menu, and then will show the content. After that, it may show a summary or have a quiz. But all of these things "live" in the same interface. Sounds simple, right?

In Authorware, it pretty much is. But in Flex it's another story. Flex has the ability to do this kind of thing with several different techniques. For instance, you can use a ViewStack, View States, or Modules. All seem to have their own advantages and disadvantages, but it feels like they're all totally different ways of doing business. Ah, what to choose, what to choose?

My first experiments have been with Modules. I find myself really frustrated (again), because it seems like it's hard to find information at all, and then when you do find it, it may or may not tell you about all the "gotchas" that seem to lurk under every rock in Flex. But I've found a decent reference for Modules and several of the other Flex features you might find useful. The links on the right seem to point to chapters in the upcoming Flex Builder 3 manual.

2 comments:

jshinn said...

Amy,

I'm traveling down the exact same path. I started out using separate modules for my menu content and lesson content, and while this seems to be the most powerful, the lack of thorough documentation has been a severe hindrance.

I tried view states but they seem clunky for an elearning course. They appear to be designed to add or remove child components to what's already being displayed and I found the AddChild and RemoveChild structures to be too limiting.

Now it's time to start experimenting with the ViewStack, which seems promising...

Thanks for the link to the flexdoc blog. I hadn't come across that one.

Unknown said...

Hiya,

Would be useful to have your thoughts on your experience since.

Cheers