Feature Tour
On this page
- Basic Text Editing
- Add Images
- Add Audio/Video/Media
- Add a Style
- Search for Media
- Preview a Lesson
- Annotate Text
- Interactive Self-Check Questions
- Learning Games and Activities
- Add a Widget
- Print Friendly HTML
- Package a Lesson
- Create an eCourse
- Publish to Blackboard
- Track Student Scores
Basic Text Editing
SoftChalk opens with a blank document displayed. Simply click your cursor in the editing window and begin typing – just as if you were using your favorite word processing program.
You may also copy and paste formatted text from Microsoft® Word, html documents, or web pages into SoftChalk, and the formatting is preserved!
You will find most of the standard text editing features in SoftChalk, including font and type size selection, as well as support for styling, color, bullets and tables. You can also easily create hyperlinks to web pages, documents, or other lessons.
Add Images
Adding images to a SoftChalk lesson is easy. Click the “Insert Image” icon on the toolbar to display the dialog window. Then, navigate to and select any “web-ready” image (jpg, gif, png) on your computer.
You may preview the image while making your selections. The dialog window allows you to modify image settings such as alignment, height/width, and to add descriptive information to accompany the image.
Add Audio/Video/Media
You may embed audio, video, and other media, or create media links within your lesson. SoftChalk supports many media types, including mpg, avi, wmv, mov, wav, mp3, ram, aiff, as well as Flash and Shockwave files.
Add a Style
To enhance your lesson with a professional-looking “style”, simply select from more than sixty different lesson styles. SoftChalk also supports “custom styles”, developed specifically for the institution that wants a “branded look” for their lesson content.
If you have created a multi-page lesson, applying a style to your lesson enables SoftChalk to automatically create page navigation between lesson pages. In addition, you may choose from a variety of navigation, layout, and Table-of-Contents options.
Search for Media
The media search tool allows you to search for lesson content (images, video, audio, text, animations, websites) across multiple repositories at once. The searchable repositories include open (creative commons), premium (fee-based license) and private (access restricted) media collections. Examples of common respoistories inlcude Flickr, YouTube and Intelecom.
After completing a search within SoftChalk you can insert the media into your lesson or save selected items into your library for later use.
Preview a Lesson
At any time while you are editing a lesson, you may use the “preview” feature to see how the lesson will look to students in their web browser. Simply click the Preview Button, and SoftChalk displays the lesson in your default web browser.
If you have applied a “style” to your lesson, you can use Preview to see the results of your style selections in a web browser.
The lesson displayed above is an example of a SoftChalk lesson to which a “style” has been added.
Annotate Text
Pop-up text annotations in your document can be used to define terms, provide related information to the student, or as an interactive question and response activity.
Creating pop-up text annotations anywhere in your document is quick and easy. Simply highlight the text you wish to annotate, then select “Insert Textpopper” from the Insert Menu.
Interactive Self-Check Questions
Use QuizPopper to add in-line comprehension questions to your lesson.
QuizPopper questions can be added anywhere in your lesson. For example, include a quiz question after a content section to allow the student to test their understanding of the lesson material.
There are seven types of questions: true/false, multiple choice, multiple answer, short answer, ordering, matching, and essay.
Students receive immediate feedback after answering questions, and quiz results may be sent directly into your Learning Management System’s gradebook if your LMS supports SCORM.
Learning Games and Activities
Use the ActivityBuilder to add interactive games and other learning activities to your lesson.
Activities include customizable image maps, matching, sorting and ordering activities, cross-words and flashcards.
Creating an activity that is customized with your content takes only minutes. Simply choose “Insert Activity” from LessonBuilder’s Insert Menu. Then, fill in the dialog window with the information you wish to include in the activity.
Activities make learning fun and help to increase information retention.
Add a Widget
Widgets enrich your lessons with functionality, useful information, and can be a great resource for lesson content. You can find educational web widgets online and easily insert them into your lesson by using the Insert Widget feature.
For more information on what type of web widgets are available and where they can be found check out the Widget Lesson.
Print Friendly HTML
While a student could individually print each lesson page, our “Print Lesson” option allows students to easily print entire SoftChalk lessons from their web browser.
This print option ensures that the pages will print correctly and that text will not run off the edge of the printed page.
Package a Lesson
After completing a lesson, use the Package feature to package the lesson into a “zip” file or a SCORM package for easy portability to a web site, or import into most Learning Management Systems.
A packaged lesson can be easily put into a course management system such as Blackboard, Sakai, eCollge, or Moodle. And you can easily share the packaged lesson with colleagues.
Create an eCourse
The eCourse Builder tool lets you assemble multiple lessons into a course. A table of contents is created to navigate between the assembled lessons and score information can be set to calculate the students' score for the entire course.
There is an automatic application of a single style design to insure consistency within the lessons. The eCourse can be packaged as a zip file, a SCORM file, or for CD-ROM.
Publish to Blackboard
With Blackboard Versions 7, 8, or 9 you can install the SoftChalk Building Block that will allow you to easily publish your lessons directly into your Blackboard course.
In some cases you may need to contact your Blackboard administrator to request the SoftChalk Publish link. Once it has been set-up you can easily publish new or modified lessons into your Blackboard course.
Track Student Scores
The ScoreTracker option lets you download or email your students’ scores from a
database hosted by SoftChalk. If you have a Learning Management System such as Blackboard, then you may not need to use the ScoreTracker feature because you can package your lessons in SCORM format, which tracks student scores and loads them into your LMS gradebook.
The ScoreTracker can be found on our website under Clients. See the user guide for more information on this topic.
Images in this lesson were used courtesy of the National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health. http://www.nei.nih.gov
