12 January 2014, 12:10

That many rows are needed for the 5 paragraph essay .... each square has a 4 square within it.  But that was just a thought.  I am still wondering if doing the 4 square method is even beneficial to do on the computer.  There is something about writing with paper and pen during the pre-writing / idea jotting stage.  But on the other hand, the ability to drag and drop to move sections around ... that is also beneficial.

Going back to the technical.  Maybe I will make these two suggestions:

1.  Allowing the drag and drop of blocks from one page to another.  That way I could just have each individual 4 square (paragraph) be a separate page within in a collection (maybe?), and then just drag and drop them into a single page during the revising stage.
2. Instead of having rows, why not simply have a block called "section block.".  The details of this would need to be worked out.  (A) Clears both sides.  (B) Specify how many columns the next section should be.  (C) The break starts in the column that it is placed in.  So theoretically, I could set my first column to continue, but then in my second and third column, I am placing a section break and break up into sub-columns.  If I am allowed to specify an ending column, I could set my first and last columns to continue, and then only add or remove columns in my middle column.  The details of this could need to be worked out.
3. Including a page within another page.  This could either be as a shared section, for example, a block that contains header or footer information.  Or it could be a one shot page, a sub section of a longer project, that is easier to manage when it is broken up into sub-parts.  But then it leads to two sub-questions, do we show the sub-page as it actually is or as more of a graphical representation?  I am thinking about my 4 quare.  I just see the main idea of the paragraph, but then I clcik on it, to actually see the whole thing with all of the sentences.
4. But then I would want to number the sub-pages.  After I have written all of my sub-section, I would need to put them in order.  If I number them, I could just click on a button that says "Convert to single paragraph text box".  Or "Keep as blocks, but put into a single column".

I guess it would boil down to if this would even be useful for high school / college level students.  If not, then spending time implementing the technical stuff might not be worth it.  But if holder students could benefit from this method (using Mahara to actually create documents with move around parts that could be rearranged), then maybe it might be useful to a wider group and worth the time/expense of its implementation.

I think that I rambled in this email, and with the technical stuff, probably in the wrong forum.

Melissa

20 January 2014, 14:31

Hello Melissa,

Drag-and-drop between pages sounds interesting. Right now we only have the solution for copying text boxes / displaying them from other pages. Do you then mean that students are able to update the text that they have dragged over or is that a fresh copy?

The elaborate scenario that you describe sounds like better suited for a text processor document that is then uploaded as PDF file and displayed directly in a page (Mahara 1.8 functionality). With that you would lose the editing functionality though, :-(

Cheers

Kristina

22 January 2014, 3:40

The whole point of a CMS is to keep all of the documents in one location.  If I have to write them originally in a word processor, then Mahara serves no purpose to me.  My students are elmentary school students, not college level students, so there really is no true "protfolio" need at this point.  It is just a tool to keep track of many items written on a dailiy basis.

Melissa