Technology Project Sample
Developing the DEScribe© Editor Software Tool
Church leaders in many developing countries eagerly embraced the concept of Distance Education. But, they quickly ran into a problem. Creating courses in a digital format required computer skills beyond the practical reach of their professors. Time, cost, and prerequisite education requirements presented nearly insurmountable obstacles.
To meet this critical need, MAF Learning Technologies developed DEScribe© Editor. Bible teachers with only minimal computer skills can now write Distance Education courses that work with MAF-LT's DEViewer© for both online and offline applications. The benefits for 3rd World seminaries and Christian educators snapped into sharp focus early in pre-Beta demonstrations. The brief glimpse of a project-in-progress drew enthusiastic response from several sources with repeated inquires of "When can I get a copy?"
DEScribe© is a free, desktop editor application that enables easy creation and handling of Distance Education (DE) content for a variety of DE platforms including the MAFLT DEViewer. It works Windows XP and Windows Vista.
Built on the Microsoft .NET 3.5 platform using the C# language, DEScribe© follows Microsoft user interface guidelines for creating files, editing text, and exporting data. So, both novice and experienced operators find it a quick-to-learn editor that makes e-learning course creation easy.
DEScribe© presents a customizable, user-friendly interface available in several languages. The DEScribe© windows layout can be modified extensively. At the same time, a user can always return to the Default Window Layout. DEScribe© remembers progress on a course and allows a restart at the last edited point.
DEScribe© provides a quick way to create a course Project and a course Table of Contents (TOC).
The course Project stores course related information such as content, resources, and metadata in a user defined location. This allows flexible fine-tuning of the course layout as well as access to the course resources at any time. It also enables project sharing with teammates.
DEScribe© creates the course TOC as an easily modifiable template. The writer can add, rename, change and move TOC entries any time during course development using the Properties window, the Context menu or Quick-Key combinations.
DEScribe© content editing capabilities satisfies even the most demanding course developer. In addition to standard text editing (including built in spell check with ‘replace’ capability), DEScribe© can create tables and insert image and media files within the text.
A course author may enhance navigation inside the course by creating links to the course content, as well as hyperlinks to the outside resources such as web pages or files. DEScribe© provides a set of tools including, for example, Course Resources and Exam Builder.
The Course Resources tool allows the writer to create links to the Bible passages inside the content of the course. It can also be used to insert a media file into the course content.
The Exam Builder eases construction of student assessments and provides multiple assessment formats such as essay, true/false, short answer and other. Users may also customize and extend the Tools catalog. These features enable the instructor to create fun, rich and well-delivered content.
DEScribe© currently exports only to MAF-LT’s DEViewer© in both online and offline applications. However, we plan to implement additional exporters soon - including one in SCORM, which is supported by multiple viewers and CMS's/LMS's (Course Management System/Learning Management systems). Multiple exporter capability enables to instructor to create courses in a wide variety of formats ranging from print to multimedia. This gives the widest possible range of students opportunity to study the course.
We invite you to join the DEScribe© Project webpage and the DEScribe© Forum webpage to ask questions and to learn more about the DEScribe©.
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