A set of free cross-platform authoring programs for flexible web-based CALL exercises

<p>The Mango Suite is a set of three freely downloadable cross-platform authoring programs for flexible network-based CALL exercises. They are Adobe Air applications, so they can be used on Windows, Macintosh, or Linux computers, provided the freely-available Adobe Air has been installed on the computer. The exercises which the programs generate are all Adobe Flash based. The three programs are: (1) Mango-multi, which constructs multiple-choice exercises with an optional sound and/or image; (2) Mango-match, which is for word/phrase matching exercises, and has an added feature intended to promote memorization, whereby an item must be matched correctly not once but an optional consecutive number of times; (3) Mango-gap, which produces seamless gap filling exercises, where the gaps can be as small as desired, down to the level of individual letters, and correction feedback is similarly detailed. Sounds may also be inserted at any desired points within the text, so that it is suitable for listening or dictation exercises. Each exercise generated by any of the programs is produced in the form of a folder containing all of the necessary files for immediate upload and deployment (except that if sound files are used in a Mango-gap exercise, they must be copied to the folder manually). The html file in which the flash exercise is embedded may be edited in any way to suit the user, and an xml file controlling the appearance of the exercise itself may be edited through a wysiwyg interface in the authoring program. The programs aim to combine ease of use with features not available in other authoring programs, toprovide a useful teaching and research tool.</p>

Database Documentary: From Authorship to Authoring in Remediated/Remixed Documentary

The engagement with documentary from its inception as a film form is frequently a set of references to documentary auteurs. The names of Flaherty, Grierson, Vertov and later Ivens, Leacock and Rouch are immediate signifiers of whole documentary film practices. These practices have given rise to histories and criticism that have dominated discussion of documentary and provided the foundation for more nuanced thinking about problems of the genre. One of the seminal texts in the field, Documentary by Erik Barnouw (1974) celebrates the auteur as the structuring principle for his historical review of documentary. It may be a reflection of the influence of this book, that so much of documentary criticism reflects the auteur approach as a starting point for analysis. The shift towards a new documentary format, the Database Documentary, challenges the concept of an auteur in its presentation of documentary materials. This format relies on a remediation technique that recalibrates documentary media within new distributive networks supported by the web and enhanced by converged and designed visual and sonic interfaces. The reception modalities are necessarily removed from the familiar forms of projection and presentation of documentary film and television. The research focus for this paper is how the concept of authorship (the “auteur”) is transformed by the emergence of the relatively new screen format of the database documentary. The paper reviews some of the more recent examples of Database Documentary, the contexts for their production and the literature on new conceptions of documentary knowledge that may be drawn from these examples. An analysis of the authoring program, Korsakow and the documentaries that have been made using its software will demonstrate the route documentary has travelled from authorship to authoring in contemporary media production.

Engaging Preservice Teachers in Hypermedia Authoring: Process and Outcomes

This article presents the methods and outcomes of a semester-long course in hypermedia authoring and instructional strategies for preservice teachers. Participants were required to learn a hypermedia authoring program and work in cooperative learning groups to produce a hypermedia software product for use with children with special needs. Data were collected from process logs; semi-structured, open-ended interviews; questionnaires; and pretest and posttest measures of computer anxiety. During the development of their projects, participants spent nearly an equal amount of time planning their software as they did in the mechanics of producing the software. Posttest findings revealed that participants showed a decrease in computer anxiety through their involvement in the course, and the lowest levels of anxiety were associated with graduate rank and prior teaching experience. Following the course, participants expressed confidence in their abilities to author hypermedia software and an interest in future involvement in hypermedia authoring as teachers.