Techniques for Developing Reusable Branching Scenarios Using XML

Instructional designers and developers need to develop creative and interactive learning environments to stimulate and motivate learners. Real-world branching scenarios are often created as a means to add enrichment and interactivity to the learning experience, but designing and developing them can be a daunting task. You can do this task quickly and easily by implementing a reusable XML schema, giving you the ability to deliver rich, real-world branching scenarios quickly and easily.

Session participants will learn a unique model for designing and developing branching scenarios. You’ll learn to identify the reusable content elements in a branching scenario that then translate into your XML schema, and how to create an XML structure that allows for flexibility in learning design such as allowing branching with or without remediation. You’ll see how to develop an easy-to-use interface where instructional designers can populate and preview content, and how separating content from design allows you to generate a different look and feel for each branching scenario, while maintaining a common authoring environment.

In this session, you will learn:

• How instructional designers, using tools they are already comfortable with, can develop complex branching scenarios
  
• How creating an XML schema can foster reuse and improve your e-Learning content development
  
• How to begin implementing an XML workflow in your e-Learning culture
  
• How to separate content from design with an eye towards reuse and developing a common structure

Audience:
Novice and intermediate instructional designers. Please prepare to identify relevant branching scenarios within your organizations and identify key components necessary to building reusable branching scenarios.

Lesson 1: Review the original presentation in PDF Format.

Lesson 2: Download a working version of a branching scenario.

Step 1: Extract all the contents of the zip file to your desktop and double-click on the scenario.html file to launch the sample scenario. Get a feel for how the scenario functions.

Step 2: Review all the files included with the sample. Conversation.xml is the stand-alone XML file with all of the scene's structure and completed sample content. The conversation_template.xml file is an empty XML document that only contains a single scene's structure- not the content itself. Scenario.fla is a sample Flash file (CS4-Actionscript 3) that you can use to review how Adobe Flash is used to import the XML files. Scenario.mdb is the database file used to populate the contents of the scenario.

Lesson 3: Review this tutorial to get a feel of how to create your own XML structure template.

Lesson 4: Review this tutorial to learn how to import your XML structure into a Microsoft Office Access 2003 (or 2007) database.

Note: You need to have a full version of Microsoft Office 2003 or 2007. This tutorial demonstrates Office 2003.

Lesson 5: Populate the MS Access database with branching scenario content

This tutorial will demonstrate how you can use the MS Access database to populate the contents of a branching scenario, and then export the contents as an XML file which can then be imported into Flash.

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