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Purpose

The LessonBuilder is an e-learning online authoring tool for the non-technical user. It was developed by Psychology Professor Glenn Albright and 2 undergraduate Computer Information System students from CUNY's Baruch College. During development, the system was tested in a pilot program with five CUNY’s professors from varied fields of study. The result is a system that demonstrates the valuable contribution of technology in assisting teachers and organizations in effective knowledge dissemination and retention.

How to use the system 

The system has a simple-to-use navigation system to help you create and publish lessons. It is located at the bottom of the screen and corresponds to the steps you should take in publishing a lesson:

1. Details - Deciding on the lesson’s title, description, and navigation system.
2. Navigation – Listing all the lesson’s topics
3. Content – Attaching the lesson’s content (text, narration, video)
4. Publish – Publishing the lesson

In addition you can use the Help button to reach this page at any time, and the Quit button to quit the lesson.

  1. Details
 


This screen allows you to indicate your lesson's title, course title, and discipline. Once you complete, you must choose one of two navigation systems for your lesson:

  1. Timeline - all your topics will appear as clickable buttons on a horizontal timeline, giving your students a sense of order and linearity.
  2. Image – you will be able to arrange your topics by defining active areas, or "hotspots" on an image of your choice, thus making it a navigational tool and giving your students an instinctive way to explore the subject.

Once completed, click on Navigation


  2. Navigation
 


This is your outline screen. You can simply type the name of your first topic at the first line, and then click on the plus sign, at the left side of the screen, to add as many additional topics as you wish.

Once your topics' list is complete, click on Content


  3. Content
 


This screen allows you to attach content (text, narration, video) to each of your topics. The lesson's title appears on the top of the screen. The topics you listed previously are listed on the left screen side. To attach text, you first need to choose the topic to work on. You can do that by simply clicking on its corresponding number, and then click on Add Text. A text box will appear on the left hand side. You can either type, or paste a text into this box. Once you finish, click Done.

To add audio, click on Browse in the sound section. Then choose the right file to upload. Note that you can use the Play and Stop buttons to listen to the audio you have uploaded.

To add video, you first need to choose the correct file type and then click on Browse in the video uploading section. Then choose the right file to upload and click Open.

We recommend that you organize your content in the form of paragraphs. Note that you can support each paragraph with one narration file and one media file. So, for example, if your paragraph is a general description of the structure of an atom, you can pair it with a diagram of an atom, an animation of the movement in an atom or a picture taken by a powerful microscope. You can also record your narration for this paragraph

Note that uploading media using the LessonBuilder implies that you allow any future LessonBuilder’s user to use your media within the LessonBuilder context, which is just our way of creating one big happy media community!


  4. Publish  
 


Once you are done attaching content to all the different topics you created you can go ahead and publish your lesson.

Click on Save/Publish, now close the LessonBuilder and click on "View Lesson" on the LessonBuilder’s home page.

This will launch the lesson you have created with all the topics and content you attached.


Final Comments

We hope that the LessonBuilder experience would be a beneficial and enjoyable one for you.

Thank you for your time!