I was determined this week to have a good crack at the Sensei Learning Management System, the plugin which I installed a couple of weeks ago.

In the first quiz for lesson 1 – Location Types and Location Systems I had three questions to rewrite slightly so that they could be automatically graded. Two of these I could easily turn into a Gap Fill type question, for example – The xxxxxxx type of location can exist in a hierarchy or a network. With this type of question, the answer is case sensitive. You must provide the answers of OPERATING, Operating, operating, anything else would be incorrect, for example Oparating would be incorrect, although the intention was correct.

The third question I had to rework, yet another Multiple Choice type, this time asking the pupil to pick three from six possible answers. Slightly different from the other multiple choice where it was pick one from four possible answers, but still a multiple choice. Seven of the ten questions were multiple choice, two gap fill, and one true/false. These are the only types that can be automatically graded.

For each question I had provided some text to support the answer. This can be entered as Answer Feedback, and you can add text to be displayed for both the Correct answer and the Incorrect answer. In most cases I was just copying the exact same text into both boxes, a pity that there isn’t an option to provide the same text, as if you need to adjust the feedback you do need to adjust it twice. Interestingly it did look as if the feedback could contain multiple blocks, so you could be creative with the feedback, for example provide an image.

I made myself a student so that I could view the lesson.

In my video transcript I updated the slides with numbers in a filled red circle and then refer to these in the transcript, for example (1). Tadas suggested they would be better as red numbers; they would stand out more. So, I spent some time fiddling around with Unicode numbers. I had preferred to use what is called Black Circled Numbers ❶ but I found it difficult to control the size of these, the numbers 1-10 were smaller than 11-20 which was a much more acceptable size. What I couldn’t do was cut and paste the numbers from one draft post where I had all the numbers between 1 and 20 with the same larger size, into the post where I needed to add the circled numbers. In the end I opted to use the White Circled Numbers ⑤ which seem to cut and paste easily.

One of the objectives I set myself for this week is to investigate the Sensei Interactive Blocks, five special blocks that can help to enrich the lesson content. These can be purchased separately without having to upgrade from the free version of the plugin to Sensei Pro.

Interactive Videos allow you to pause a video at specific points called break points. At these points you could ask a question or interact with Image Hotspots, for example to ask a question and for someone to point to one of the hotspots which they believe contains the correct answer. You can also interact with a Flashcard or add a form. I’ll have to prove it to myself, but I suspect that you might have the ability to link the break point with any type of block. You can make the break points to be interacted with before being able to complete the lesson.

The Question Block can add a single question of any type including multiple choice, true/false, and an ordered list. You can show different messages depending on whether the answer is correct or incorrect. This may be where other question types are used that can’t be used in the automatic marking of an end of lesson quiz.

The Image Hotspot Block is an image where you add hotspots that must be interacted with to complete the lesson. When a user clicks a hotspot, a box opens containing other blocks, text, an image, a video, etc. An Image Hotspot block can also be added to posts and pages.

The Flashcard Block is a rectangle (landscape) that contains other blocks, for example a paragraph asking a question, and below the flashcard is the instruction to Flip Card, and on the reverse is the answer or other information provided by other blocks. Flashcards can be used to highlight important information and they can be added to any post or page and not just in a lesson or at the course level. A flashcard can contain a video, audio, image, or any other type of block.

The Task List Block is used to check off the steps the user has performed, they would be used in lessons, but they could also be used in tutorials or documentation or elsewhere in your website. For example, if there were a set of posts that should be followed in an order the reader could follow these in turn and check each one as they have completed it. You can make task lists required before being able to progress to the next step, they can be used as a check list.

Now to try them out.

With the Interactive Video you choose the video type which includes YouTube and Vimeo and then you add the embedded URL for your video. This looks like a normal YouTube embedded video with a timeline below it. If you have created Timestamps for the video, then you know the exact times when you wish to add a break point. I added a break point after every slide. I found it easier to just create the number of break points that I wanted and roughly position them, I could see the YouTube chapter bars so this helped. Adding the exact time is easier to highlight the minute field and type the number you wanted, same for the second field, and the millisecond field to just enter 00. After positioning the break points where you want them, I then used Edit Content; nothing fancy just a Heading block and a List block of the main points learnt from each section.

When you view the lesson and start playing the video you see below the video a timeline with small green squares. As the video reaches these break points a dialog opens with the content that you created, in my case a heading and each bullet point. The Continue button will move the pupil to the next part of the video – nice. The course content might be a bit more elaborate than just a set of bullets.

I’ve been using the Question Block in the two end of lesson quizzes I’ve created. When you add it as a regular block the block toolbar has an alignment option and an option to make the question required which adds a circle in the left-hand margin like what you get with a task list.

The question options include:

• Multiple Choice which is a question and a radio button of answers one of which you mark as Right and the others as Wrong. If you have multiple Right answers, then they are tick boxes, Wrong answers are left blank.
• A True/False question is a radio button with the obvious two options for answers.
• The Gap Fill question is where you make a statement with before and after text and the user fills in the gap, probably a single word answer.
• The Single Line question is where you provide a short answer like what you expect the pupil to provide, this would probably be just a sentence.
• The Ordering question is where you provide the answers in the right order, and these are randomised for the pupil who is asked to place them in the right order. For example, place these events in the correct time sequence.

With all question types there is an Answer Feedback which gives you the ability to add text to support the Correct answer and similarly for the Incorrect answer. The Answer Feedback boxes also support multiple blocks of various types, not just text, you could provide an Image Hotspot block or a video, or audio block.

The question has a Question Title and below this a paragraph block for the text of the question, this could have other blocks, for example an image, a video or an audio block.

The Question Block has Typography, Dimensions, Borders, and Colouring options. Both the Question and Answer Blocks, and the Correct Answer Feedback and Incorrect Answer Feedback blocks have Block Visibility with a number of options for enrolled/not-enrolled, completed course/lesson (or not) you can also mark the questions/answers visible to a group. You can schedule visibility for a range of dates or a number of days after a user enrolled on the course. Interestingly there was no ability to change the background colour of the Correct/Incorrect Answer Feedback blocks.

The Flashcard block is two Cover blocks where you add a flashcard question on one side and provide the answer on the other. You can also make this required like you can for a question, and it adds a circle in the left-hand margin. A Cover block can be an image with text over the top, these are often found in the header of a website, so you can be creative with how the flashcard looks. Both cover blocks can contain more than the paragraph block, it might be an audio block and paragraph block.

The Image Hotspot block looks to be useful. You add an image and then you can add hotspots to the image with each hotspot having its own text, or other type of block. In early tests it does look as if the original hotspot is retained even if you move the hotspot to another position. But I’ll have to give that a bit more testing. The rectangle that opens when you click the hotspot is below and central to the hotspot and there doesn’t seem to be a way of saying add the text centrally but to the right. The rectangle of text overlays anything beneath it.

All these interactive blocks have potential to be used and now that I know what they can do I need that bit of inspiration to make the lessons more interactive. With the potential for 90 to 100 lessons I need to develop a style that I will follow through, better to get it right before too many lessons and quizzes have been created. It is a pain going back over posts that you have already created as I need to do to improve the images and the SEO for the first twenty or more video transcripts, something I aim to do over the quieter Christmas period.

I didn’t publish a video this week the one I am working on is going to break all previous records I suspect that it might be 45 minutes long, I just hope I get it complete before I go on holiday. I suspect that I will be three videos behind schedule by the time I start the New Year but looking forward I think most of the videos in the future should be no more than 20 minute long.

My objectives for Week 50 will be:

• Publish the weekly YouTube video that I have started
• Add the soft box diffusers to the recently purchased lights.

Not much in the way of objectives as I have a short week.