Revisiting digital badges, 2016 edition

After a Twitter convo about what's going on with badging initiatives and recently reading an article about badging in libraries that I (+ noted by some others) don't agree with, it feels like time for an update on my thoughts about badging.

When I first started thinking about badges and using badges, they seemed to help solve the problem of so many requests for library instruction, but without having the resources to physically be embedded in each class. I first designed and implemented badging into the one-credit course we used to have for information literacy. It was fully online and part of the coursework included tutorials and other online work. I created badges for our initial pilot that required instructor feedback and more conversation between instructor and student for badges to be earned (rather than automated earning through multiple choice, etc.). This pilot was very successful. Students enjoyed earning badges, saying it helped them organize what they were learning and that it provided more... closure perhaps... than just doing a tutorial or reading something and moving on. Since this course was geared toward freshmen, the badges added a student success component to help them think more about how to study and how to move through a course.

When we moved into the Fall semester pilot (still in 2013), when enrollment for this course gets to be the largest (over 100), we had to revise the badges and make them all mostly automated so that our GA could actually get through all of them plus her regular grading and instruction work for this course. Although students were still positive for the most part about the badges, it didn't feel as successful, to me at least, from an instructor standpoint. This could wind up being a discussion instead about class size, but I think both aspects played a role in my impression.

During this time, I thought since the info lit outcomes for our general education program weren't as strong (and mandatory?) as they needed to be, and that perhaps embedding badging options into gen ed courses would help usher in more info lit instruction, but where librarians wouldn't need to be coming in to do one-shots. We just don't have the resources for those anymore, and as Instruction Coordinator, I will firmly say I don't feel they are beneficial pedagogically to our instruction goals here at the UofA (we are phasing them out, #nomoreoneshots).

I wrote about my presentation to gen ed faculty here and also included student feedback from the pilots. Faculty were positive and it was a possibility to make this work. With a new online college established (UA Online), we also considered embedding badges in these programs since badges might work better with fully online courses. We also considered badges for the Writing Program at the beginning of this academic year. But just popping in automated badges in various spots of the curriculum (without greater collaboration with faculty, potentially) would essentially be the same thing as a one-shot, just virtually. This would be more physically possible, but not be so beneficial pedagogically. After bouncing around and evaluating what might work best instruction-wise, and based on the needs of these programs and departments, we reverted back to thinking about badges as a student success tool. So we have ultimately landed on collaborating with the College of Letters, Arts, & Sciences (CLAS) to use badges in their student success course for undecided students. We are working with our GA and ARL CEP Fellow to have them create and design these badges, and there will be 4 available to students in this program to introduce them to research.

This brings up the discussion also then of using badges with the Framework versus the Standards. I was able to design badges, that required instructor feedback and communication (not automated), to teach students about scholarship as conversation, research as iterative, and other frames. It was totally possible. But when we needed to shift badges to automated for our large pilot (and CLAS has over 1,000 students), this isn't really possible. And it has nothing to do with what is better, the Framework or the Standards--I do like the Framework better, FYI--but pedagogically, instructor feedback and interaction with students is going to be more effective and have a greater impact (that's my opinion, at least).

I do think badges are great for student success purposes and for engagement. Badges contribute to how a one might want to project their identity. After discussions on campus about badging stemming from the pilot I did, badges are being used in a large-scale student engagement initiative that's essentially related to AAC&U High Impact Practices. I think this is a great way for students to track what more holistic experiences they are having on campus and can help them conceptualize what they've done. When it comes to classroom instruction or information literacy initiatives, I think the use of badges gets more tricky and a number of factors need to be considered. And I prefer more fluidity in instructional design and collaborations with faculty that badges anchoring curriculum can't provide.

Now, one of those factors that always seems to pop up when badges are discussed is employer needs and employer impressions of students' value as future workers. I recently wrote about the state of higher education and info lit instruction in the winter 2015 issue of Communications in Information Literacy: A Pedagogy of Inquiry, so you can get more context on where I'm coming from with that article. My entire perspective of badges since I first became interested was about improving pedagogy, badges as instructional design, and trying to give students more autonomy over how they might want to represent themselves and their learning. If the badges and the learning piqued employers' interest and helped students get jobs after graduating, that's great, but should not be the sole purpose of badging (or education!). This is one of the main problems I have with a recent article about badges for employers in the Jan 2016 issue of C&RL. The use of "critical information literacy" in the title is a bit misleading, but regardless, critical (as in essential, according to this article's use of the word) anything for instruction shouldn't hinge on what employers say they need. This post is already getting quite long, so do read my CIL article if you'd like more on that. As others had pointed out to me, some of the other problems with the article include: lack of citations to librarians who have already published and presented on badge-related topics (and the citation of my work is incorrect--we saw my article is the only one cited of librarians who have researched this, and is also described strangely, plus my name isn't even included in the citation); it's confusing why HR reps and not even hiring managers were interviewed; and why this particular methodology was chosen.

I'm writing this quickly before I do an ACRL webinar soon (to talk about our use of the Framework and how we are phasing out one-shots... which I would love to write more about sometime in the future), but I knew if I didn't make this post now I might not have time again for awhile. Here's hoping there aren't any glaring errors. And hoping more that this post was useful to those of you asking about what I've learned about badging and how we're using them here at the University of Arizona.

#ala2013 recap: Badges, student retention, and over-capacity parties

Wow #ala2013 went by so fast! This was hands down my favorite conference that I've been to over the last 3 years. Here's my brief recap of highlights:

I didn't attend as many sessions as I would have liked; I presented twice, led a discussion group, and reviewed people's resumes for NMRT's Resume Review Service, so a lot of my time was already nailed down, but it was all stuff I wanted to do so it worked out.

Gamification
On Saturday morning, I presented on the LITA: What to know before gamifying your library panel. We had a range of topics including: Bohyun Kim (moderator) giving an overview of gamification; Dave Pattern's use of Library Game / Library Lemontree at the University of Huddersfield (UK); Annie Pho covering the not-fun-but-very-important stuff on how to create institutional buy in and obtain grant money for these sorts of projects; and Young Lee explaining the technology aspects involved and how he plans to use badges in a law school library. My presentation was titled, "Anchoring the badge: Setting standards for game-based learning in library instruction." I discussed my current implementation of badges for instruction at The University of Arizona Libraries. You can see the Slideshare presentation with everyone's slides; though, since it was such a large panel not all of us contributed slides (myself included). So you won't get much from what I discussed in that link. Here is a very brief summary below; I am sure I will be speaking and writing about this project more as it progresses (have IRB approval!), so I plan to share more information in the near future.

Importance and benefits of using badges for instruction:

• Makes instruction more scalable, can ensure wider adoption of IL skills: trackable, measurable
• With trackability and assessment built in, this presents possibilities for customized learning ("microcredentialing," demonstrate specific skills; customization can greatly improve motivation and learning)
• Evidence is tied to the idea of competency-based learning (use specific outcomes to show criteria has been met for assessment, accreditation, program SLOs, other standards like the ACRL IL Standards, etc.)
• What we are doing at the University of Arizona: my overview was very brief since I'm still currently studying this and have gotten IRB approval to do so

I left those in attendance with some thoughts from Dan Hickey of Indiana University, via a Campus Technology article, How badges really work in higher education:

• "What sorts of claims will your badges make about the earners and what evidence will your badges contain to support those claims? 
• What assumptions about learning will frame your consideration and implementation of badges?
• How will your badges program be introduced? Will it be a centralized effort or pockets of innovation? "

You can read more about badges and gamification in academic libraries from what I have published in ACRL TechConnect on initial plans for badges at the UA Libraries, as well as our use of SCVNGR back in a pilot:

• Test-driving Purdue's Passport platform for library instruction

• Taking a trek with SCVNGR: Developing asynchronous, mobile orientations and instruction for campus

Char Booth also has a great post on badges at her blog, Info-mational, looking at badging in higher ed and discussing how she is using this form of micro-credentialing in the ACRL Immersion Teaching with Technology track. See her post, MYOB: Make your own badge.

More on Badges for Instruction
On Sunday, I presented a Conversation Starter with Annie Pho and Young Lee: Achievement unlocked: Motivating and assessing user learning with digital badges. Our hashtag was #alabadge, and you can see some helpful Tweets summarizing the session.

Tweets about "alabadge"

Student Retention
On Saturday, I also co-facilitated my and Jaime Hammond's ACRL Student Retention Discussion Group meeting.  You can also find the group on ALA Connect. Our topic for this meeting was:

How do we measure causation versus correlation in the library’s role in student success and retention? The ACRL Student Retention Discussion Group will be discussing the impact of a “culture of assessment” on libraries and demonstrating value on campus in regards to retention. We will discuss how effective demonstration of value in campus retention is through traditional methods and hope to explore ideas participants have for new initiatives.

To help guide the discussion, we used Megan Oakleaf's article on assessment strategies:

Oakleaf, M. (March 01, 2013). Building the Assessment Librarian Guildhall: Criteria and Skills for Quality Assessment. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 39, 2, 126-128.  

We had some great discussions about what people are doing at their institutions, and seemed to have a good mix of academic librarians from community colleges and universities. The minutes should be posted within the next week or so; if this interests you, joining the Connect group will keep you up to speed. We also organize monthly article discussions during the regular academic year, with volunteers choosing articles and facilitating.


Misc
Other things included the Librarian Wardrobe + Every Library After Hours Party, which will have a solid recap on Librarian Wardrobe soon. We had a great time helping to raise awareness and $$ for Every Library, and so excited to plan more events with them at future conferences. Apologies to anyone who could not get into the party, it's very, very hard to find venues that allow for a large capacity without charging tons of money that neither LW or EL have to spare. We do have plans to accommodate more of everyone for #ala2014.


There was a lot of other great stuff but I'm going to stop there since this is already getting pretty long. I had a lot of fun spending time with friends and meeting new people at this conference. In the meantime, I am getting ready to go to ACRL Immersion in Seattle later this month for Program Track and have some other, exciting projects in progress as well. Check back here for more updates on badges and other stuff!

Library research expertise, collect them all

From Purdue Passport

Student motivation can be problematic in college courses, and particularly with auxiliary college work where skills are encouraged, but aren't necessarily required to be learned (ahem, library research skills). Some instructors are serious about students building a knowledge base in using the library and developing critical thinking in regards to information, but it's not across the board. As we know from the ERIAL Project, student perceptions are heavily influenced by their instructors' relationships with the library. When the library has a good relationship with an instructor, research assignment design tends to be strong and students get a better grounding in using library resources. As great as this is and as much as we'd hope to advertise this fact to faculty, we can't exactly force every instructor on campus to work with us and especially to incorporate a research-related or info lit-type of assignment if they either don't want to, or it doesn't fit with the course.

So, we wonder, how can we help students develop these skills even if we can't work with them through a class, or if we haven't yet become embedded where they are. I've been thinking about this a lot over the past year in relation to student retention and also gaming and motivation, and became very interested in Mozilla's Open Badges, which I discussed here back in January when exploring badge systems. These badges are tied to certain skills that can be earned through reading and completing certain tasks, which can then be displayed in a portfolio or on social networking sites.

Thinking about how this can be tied to education has been apparent in MOOCs, and just recently, Purdue has developed Passport to offer badges in a university setting. I have been approved to be a beta tester, which I am really excited about. We have been talking about incorporating gamification and a badge system here at the University of Arizona Libraries since I started and was particularly enthusiastic about it, but we run into issues with the programming side of the system since we have limited staff in that regard. We are hoping to develop a gamification layer over our existing tutorials and guides and will have badges tied to the ACRL Information Literacy Standards (as a very basic explanation of these ideas).

Now, let's be realistic, I think we all get it that most students aren't going to be persuaded to do extra work in learning library research skills just because they might get a PNG image after completing tutorials and quizzes (I certainly know I wouldn't have been convinced as an undergrad). However, I am hoping we are able to work with the career center, tutoring, and other areas on campus that might help give the badges more value so students feel they are meaningful. If only one unit on campus is offering these badges, what exactly do they even mean? However, if students can include a suite of them in an eportfolio or on a resume, that does have more value. On the flipside, from our analytics, we do see that students, and even non-students, complete our tutorials regularly without them being assigned, and for the ones offering a certificate upon completion, we have a large number of people submitting their information to receive one. So, there is clearly intrinsic motivation present, but we hope to use a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic to find the right balance in helping students build these skills.

I wrote a literature review on motivation in gamified learning scenarios for a gaming in education course I took this semester, which you can read here if you're interested. Applying these ideas to a badge system in libraries is more tricky than a classroom since we typically do one-shot sessions, and like I mentioned these skills are often treated as auxiliary to a class.

Anyhow, I will keep this blog more updated than usual as I beta test and incorporate badges into our resources! More next time...

Reflections on Code Academy and Code Year so far

I've started Code Academy and as of last night, completed Week 1. This is a free program with weekly, online lessons to learn how to code (Javascript). Librarians have started using the hashtag, #codeyear to communicate with each other on their progress (and you can sign up for the lessons at the Code Year site). There has been a push in Libraryland for librarians to learn coding so we can be more self-sufficient in developing digital services and products, as well as just communicating better with IT professionals. There is even a newly-established ALA Connect group for librarians to discuss and help each other with the weekly lessons.

My impressions so far of Code Academy are mixed. Of course, no doubt, this is a great thing. It's free, it's accessible, and it's an intro-level program that is incredibly interactive. It can be hard to teach yourself these types of skills, so opening up the playing field is huge.

It's also nice that the lessons are given in increments, so you get Week 1 for a week, and then are sent Week 2 the next week. You can do more if there is more content up on the site, but it at least makes it more digestible. The leveling up and getting badges is another thing I like. It could be a little bit of gamification, but since these lessons have been made more social through Code Academy and also through the library community, it adds a little more fun to it. I've taken a particular interest as well as to how the Mozilla Open Badges project will relate to library instruction (or could relate), so experiencing a badge-generating program is useful to me and I'm seeing how it could potentially work with students. Although the Mozilla Open Badges project is for open access education, I still think it could be a beneficial concept to try in university and other formal academic settings as well.

Back to Code Academy, there are also some things that I am finding problematic. When considering good pedagogy, detailed feedback contributes to effective learning. Code Academy does not really give any feedback. You put your code in and run it, and then you are right or wrong. There is a little bit of info that pops up when you do enter wrong code, but it's not often enough to help you figure out where you went wrong. The hints are great at the beginning of the lessons, but get more obtuse and mysterious as you progress. I think it can be a good method that they are giving sort of a sandbox atmosphere to try out coding without being bogged down with theory and memorizing definitions (and where you don't have to be afraid of failure, which is a quality of a good game BTW) but at the same time, not really understanding the logic behind how some of the code works makes it very hard to understand why your answer does not work. I was glad to have other librarians who understand coding logic explain why my answer for Week 1, Lesson 8.2 was incorrect, so I was able to progress and finish the week.

Overall, I really do think Code Academy is great, and I'm going to continue on with the lessons. It can be difficult to weave detailed feedback in to an automatic, teach yourself-type program, but at the same time, it is essential for people who are just starting out. I think this article by Tech Crunch, "Will we need teachers or algorithms" (interesting read also for emerging trends in education) rings true here to a degree. Human or AI-driven though, if you can't figure out what you did wrong in a meaningful way, you can't learn from your mistakes and progress.

Kuhlthau, Second Life, and Beach Jupiter

All throughout library school I heard about Second Life, how exciting it was and how it could have educational benefits; I thought eh ok that's great for people who like that sort of stuff, and I'm willing to acknowledge its possible potential, but I wouldn't want to try it.

But the other day, I saw on the ili-l discussion list that the iSchool at Sheffield University was going to start a journal club in Second Life to talk about articles relating to information literacy instruction. After attending less interactive webinars more recently I thought maybe a visually-oriented, interactive web meeting would be more intriguing. I decided to just give Second Life a shot and thought I could attend the session while at our quieter, satellite campus.

To set myself up, I created an avatar and tried to get comfortable with the program (you need to download the browser to your computer (it's free)). Making my avatar look how I had sort of hoped was very awkward and seemed janky to me, but I feel like it's good enough -- she is no longer bald and wearing both a skirt and pants at the same time. Walking, running, and flying aren't as tedious as I had thought they would be, and for the most part, I think I get the basic functions.

The article we discussed in the session was:
Kuhlthau, C. C., Heinström, J. & Todd, R. J. (2008) "The 'information search process' revisited: Is the model still useful?." Information Research [ejournal], 13(4), paper 335. [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/13-4/paper355.html]

Organized by "Sheila Yoshikawa" and with the discussion led by "Pancha Enzyme," which are Second Life handles of course, it was a smooth session with a lively discussion (my avatar's name is "Beach Jupiter"). It felt more interactive than a standard webinar, and granted it was meant to be a group discussion rather than a presentation, the visuals certainly made me feel more inclined to participate than an anonymous chatbox.

I'll summarize what I took away from the discussion, but won't spend too much time on summarizing the article itself since it's easy to access:

First, Pancha gave an overview of the article we read to reiterate the main points:

• it covers knowledge construction and feelings in information seeking
• the article showed it is still relevant today, changing for the information environment (technology)
• the method can be diagnostic in figuring out point-of-need to assist students struggling with assimilating information
• it offers recognition of discouraging and motivational emotions in the research process

 (And I will add, from the article, the six steps of the information search process are, in order:

1. initiation
2. selection
3. exploration
4. formulation
5. collection
6. presentation)

She also had slides ready that avatars could zoom in on to read closely and projected SCONUL's 7 Pillars of Information Literacy and Taylor's Learning Process Sequence (see section 3.1.3) for comparisons. We discussed that Taylor's process seems to offer more room for emotions (as opposed to SCONUL's pillars), and that it also focuses on the experience of learning.


We talked about strengths and weaknesses in the article as well:
Weaknesses first:

• article illustrates research process as linear, when it truly is not
• students could not describe their own emotions; they had to rate pre-chosen terms
• confidence intervals were small (for emotions)
• much information now comes from browsing and encountering (not just searching), so is the article still fully relevant today with the expanse of technology?
• individuals have different emotions when there is no grade involved (or money/time constraints for non-students)
• seems prescriptive: those who follow the process of this emotional rollercoaster during research will not be as successful, as it says the students who followed the process more closely did the best grade-wise and with learning

Strengths: 

• could be used as a marketing tool for libraries to appeal for more student/class time
• can use the process to show students that their frustrations and anxiety (as well as other negative emotions) are very common and do not represent a sign of failure
• could be used as a guide to time management
• (should be explicit for learners and not a secret guide for librarians/teachers)

They are looking for discussion leaders in future sessions, as well as articles to recommend. Seems like a great thing to keep up with, and I will be attending sessions as I am able.

Library maps

I've been dabbling in cartography for our library, drawing out (virtually) and labeling our downstairs and upstairs to help students navigate the stacks better (only showing first floor map here). We do have labels on the shelving, as well as LCSH guides, but this can help make it more visual and holistic.

I mentioned this task very briefly in a former post but now I have the finished products. We plan to post these maps on the bookcases, create smaller handouts students can take, and also post it on our website. Instead of just having a static map as a tab on our LibGuides, I made the suggestion we use photo editing software to create circles or highlights over each subject area's related locations to customize the maps for various departments.

As a review of Gliffy, I really liked it, and it's free. If you select to have objects snap to grid and align, it makes having repeating objects much easier to deal with. As you can see, there are also options for color and text styles/fonts. I also liked the variety of floorplan objects you can select to make furniture look close to what your library might have. Did I mention it's free? That's a huge plus.

The subjects chosen to be shown on the bookcase images (if you can even read them -- text is harder to read on the maps when posted here via Blogger) are ones that directly relate to classes offered and highlighted programs. For example, students are less likely to look up photography books here, and more likely to look up architecture and interior lighting for buildings because of our interior design program, and lack of a photography program.

It will hopefully be less intimidating for students to navigate the library having a map ahead of time; this should also really encourage browsing. I'm excited for when we get them posted to see what the reaction will be.

A slicker example I saw recently of a library map is the University of Arizona's virtual tour but I believe from what a colleague mentioned that it was not free. The pop-ups with photos do look really nice.

Mash it up

The previous post was intended to be my final blog update for 2009, but while listening to a Library 2.0 Gang podcast during my run this evening, I was inspired to add one more before the year ends tomorrow.

I discovered the Library 2.0 Gang podcast series a couple of weeks ago, which is delivered in a host/moderator + panel discussion format. The most recent podcast on social software was great, so I decided to listen to previous recordings. I suppose I'm a little late to the party because it's been going on since 2008, I believe.

The episode I listened to today was about mashups. For anyone unfamiliar, Webopedia explains that

the term mashup refers to a new breed of Web-based applications... mix[ing] at least two different services from disparate, and even competing, Web sites. A mash-up, for example, could overlay traffic data from one source on the Internet over maps from Yahoo, Microsoft, Google or any content provider. The term mash-up comes from the hip-hop music practice of mixing two or more songs.

On this particular panel was Frances Haugen, who made some really interesting contributions to the discussion about what mashups could be and how libraries could benefit. For example, a forgotten book from the 60's might be essentially "dead," but with a recommendation mashup (similar to Amazon's), people might start interacting with the resource again, revitalizing its use. Another example she explained was regarding smart phones being used to help direct patrons to resources by showing them how to locate resources: the librarian would help them figure out how to find the information, and the smart phone would guide them to the materials, physically.

While being enrolled in the LIS program here and using the library heavily, I had sort of daydreamed about there being a map feature for *within* the library. I don't have a smart phone, but if I did, I could have my position listed as "you are here" with specific directions to get to the section of the library I would want to go to. I especially thought this would be useful when the UA Main Library was moving materials around, or even just when I was new to the library as a new student. Western Illinois University's Text Me! service is such an innovative idea and could potentially be the start to a mashup of this sort. While searching the catalog, you can elect to have a call number texted to your phone so you don't have to write it down and could more easily find it while in the library. If that information could be mashed up with directions inside the library, it would be so easy to find materials.

**Edit (1/3/2010): After now finishing the most recent issue of American Libraries, I just read that my daydream has essentially come true in Bozeman, MT at Montana State University. Joseph Janes (p.34) talks about a new Flash tool in use to "mouse over stack locations on a map, the LC call number ranges and subject areas appear on the side." Pretty excellent!**

An example of a great mashup I recently found is Rent Sleuth, combining information on available apartments in NYC, nearby public transportation, crime rates, and incidents of bedbug infestations all on one map. For my job I also recently created a mashup to show students all the buildings they would need to know of for a summer science internship program on campus, as well as which researchers and mentors are in those buildings plus their websites.

As the panel pointed out, not all mashups are or should be maps (but those just happened to be some examples I had to share). Nicole Engard, also on the panel, shows further examples of library mashups in her book, Library mashups: Exploring new ways to deliver library data, and that link also has further online resources listed.

Anyhow, I think mashups are very exciting and it's so interesting to think of all the ways libraries could combine various data to make collections and services more accessible to users, as well as provide better tools for assessment. I look forward to seeing what the new year will bring in these technologies.

On that note, this is definitely my last post for the year, goodbye 2009, and happy new year!

Static vs. dynamic tutorials

Recently, I created a tutorial for work to teach high school students completing undergraduate-level internships how to use the communicative features of the University of Arizona's course management software, D2L. It was quickly decided it would be necessary to show them these features earlier in the week, so my task was to have the tutorial published a day or so later, with me only working 5 hrs per day. I was definitely up for the challenge and excited to learn some new software, but first, I had to choose what to use. There seems to be a lot of talk about Camtasia and Captivate, and although I did want to base my choice on positive reviews of colleagues, I also did not want the tutorial to be a video. I could be wrong in assuming from skimming that both of those programs work in that way (remember, I had limited time), but nonetheless, I went on a search for something different that allowed for creating a static tutorial. Instead of just taking screen shots and then painting on, I opted to download and give Wink a try.

Before I explain why I both liked and did not like Wink, I do want to mention why I wanted a static tutorial instead of a dynamic one. I realize a video or changing features can be more interactive and maybe more exciting, but for people to learn something with a defined set of steps that don't have room for interpretation or creativity (how to send a classmate a page or how to get to your student profile), versus a lot of options for experimentation (searching databases or using Dreamweaver, for example), I think a static presentation is the best. People of course learn in different styles, but following a step by step set of instructions accompanied by non-changing visuals seems to be the easiest to follow, especially if the students would be copying the activities exactly as they go. Rather than pausing and rewinding a video to see where was clicked a few times, it would be more cognitively efficient to look at a screen with things pointed at or circled and the steps taken listed.

So, my opinion of Wink. First it's only for Windows and Linux, just to mention, and it took a couple tries to get the hang of it. The instructions aren't the greatest, and I had to watch the video tutorial more than once before I had a flow going. As mentioned, I opted to create a static tutorial, so how it worked was really just me navigating and then pressing the designated screen capture button. What made Wink stand out from the default screen capture/mark up program on the computer I was using, however, was how clean the add-ons looked and how simple they were to tack onto the shots once learning how all the features worked. It was then easy to export it to HTML or PDF. But, where it got tricky was figuring out how to make the file accessible. The PDF was nowhere near as good of quality as the HTML (it looked great printed, though), so I wanted to make sure to only post the HTML. From reading the instructions that come with Wink, I was under the impression that once you export to HTML, it is a standalone file that does not need to be uploaded to a web site to work, that it could just be opened directly into a browser. How wrong I was. After searching the Wink discussion boards, I realized I did in fact need to upload the file to the server, as well as the flash file and accompanying PNG images. Then, I had to go through the HTML and make sure each page of the tutorial was appropriately linked with the designated image. This took a bit of time since some were not connected and I had to double check the order.

Other problems were that the forward/backward buttons somehow moved away from the overlaying hyperlinks, so they stopped advancing to the next page when clicked. I had to go back to Dreamweaver and slide those back over. Also, even after being positive (triple checking) everything was linked and working, one of the pages just stopped working.

I don't know if I'd use Wink again -- now that I understand it better, it might be easier, but it was not the most efficient because I think I spent more time dealing with the software and it's problems than making the actual tutorial. I'm mostly pleased with the final product and would like to post it but don't feel comfortable since student names are captured in screen shots, but if I am able to make a version with fixes for privacy, I hope to share that in the near future.