I'm wondering if anyone knows how I would build an activity where new teachers could drag, drop, resize, and rotate pieces of furniture in a classroom floorplan. I want teachers to think about the intentional design in a classroom space. I know there are already some great classroom builders out there but I really wanted to house it in storyline and not rely on outside web links.
I have built a couple of drag and drops and thought this would be fairly straight forward. I was mistaken. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
drag and drop elements are easily build, as you already know I guess. :) Rotating and resizing is a bit difficult because there is no build in trigger for something like that. I once tried to build a puzzle with rotating pieces. I used a rectangle as a place where they can rotate via arrows. This worked fine, but was a lot of work. You have to rotate the element in states and trigger this by a variable or via a state trigger. Whatever works best for you.
(For excample: If item 1 is placed on the rotating element the true/false variable of item 1 is changing to true (menaing you are now allowed to rotate it). Then with every click on an arrow it´s changing it´s state. Like if user clicks on arrow right (if variable item 1 is true) item 1 changes to state 1. Then of course you have to change the variable of item 1 back to false, if the element leaves the rotating element. You have to do this for every item 4 times for a full rotation.)
Why do you need resizing? You could build this equally to the rotating version only with differenty sized elements in the states. Or if it´s something like different sizes for furniture you could create different versions as seperate drag elements. Maybe like a catalogue they can choose from.
Depending on the size of your slide and the space they have to build this, you maybe have to work with hiding stuff if they are allowed to not use every piece. I think this will be a lot of work and really complicated. But you can learn a lot of it if you really want to do this. :)
Thanks a ton. You've given me a lot to ponder over. The old adage of "is the juice worth the squeeze" comes to mind. It's definitely a place to start and later perfect just maybe not in this iteration. Thanks again, I'll play with your idea a bit and see if I can make some headway. Have a great day!
Not to be disagreeable, but the adage that comes to my mind is "re-inventing the wheel". There are dozens of grade book programs out there that do seating charts, some of them online, and free. (You squeeze, I'm going to drink the juice that is already here. And if you spend too long squeezing, I'll drink your share, too.)
Doing this in SL would be like driving a nail with a shovel; if it has to be done, and you have no other tool, you can do it, but in the time it takes, you can go a long way to buy a hammer (or rock) and end up with a better result in less time. (No matter how long and hard you squeeze, this turnip won't yield juice and if it does, you won't like it.)
If you work at minimum wage, you could buy a LOT of copies of a grade book program that does seating charts and a lot more for the same money. Or, if you insist that you already have SL, and it would be cheaper to use it, I can only say that by the time you have a usable product, you will be working for about .02 an hour. You'd be better off learning a programming language and creating it that way. (By the time you get juice, you'll be too old and tired to drink it.)
I'm just saying, use hammers to drive nails, shovels to dig holes, and SL to create eLearning experiences.
Thanks for the words of wisdom Walt. Maybe I wasn't being as clear as I could have been. I'm not looking for seating charts. I'm looking for a room designer that is interactive and specific to classrooms and their differentiated needs from primary to secondary to higher ed. There are many out there already but I hate to rely on 3rd party websites I can't update, control, etc. As you stated there are a ton of "seating chart templates" out there. Disagreeable or not I appreciate your comments.
Just to be clearer than I was previously, I mentioned seating charts because they include furniture design and placement. Admittedly the control you have can vary considerably from program to program. They probably don't offer the flexibility you need, and I'm sure none of them offer any design help or suggestions.
In SL, Drag and Drop can be done, but like Susi says, resize and rotate would require work beyond believing. If I were doing the designing, I would use SketchUp, but I don't know if you could ask the teachers to do it. You could create a template for them to use, but I think SketchUp may require a prohibitively high level of user competence. They would be learning how to use it, rather than thinking about classroom design. Just thinking out loud.
5 Replies
Hi Bryan,
drag and drop elements are easily build, as you already know I guess. :) Rotating and resizing is a bit difficult because there is no build in trigger for something like that. I once tried to build a puzzle with rotating pieces. I used a rectangle as a place where they can rotate via arrows. This worked fine, but was a lot of work. You have to rotate the element in states and trigger this by a variable or via a state trigger. Whatever works best for you.
(For excample: If item 1 is placed on the rotating element the true/false variable of item 1 is changing to true (menaing you are now allowed to rotate it). Then with every click on an arrow it´s changing it´s state. Like if user clicks on arrow right (if variable item 1 is true) item 1 changes to state 1. Then of course you have to change the variable of item 1 back to false, if the element leaves the rotating element. You have to do this for every item 4 times for a full rotation.)
Why do you need resizing? You could build this equally to the rotating version only with differenty sized elements in the states. Or if it´s something like different sizes for furniture you could create different versions as seperate drag elements. Maybe like a catalogue they can choose from.
Depending on the size of your slide and the space they have to build this, you maybe have to work with hiding stuff if they are allowed to not use every piece. I think this will be a lot of work and really complicated. But you can learn a lot of it if you really want to do this. :)
Hope this helps a little.
Susi
Susi,
Thanks a ton. You've given me a lot to ponder over. The old adage of "is the juice worth the squeeze" comes to mind. It's definitely a place to start and later perfect just maybe not in this iteration. Thanks again, I'll play with your idea a bit and see if I can make some headway. Have a great day!
Not to be disagreeable, but the adage that comes to my mind is "re-inventing the wheel". There are dozens of grade book programs out there that do seating charts, some of them online, and free. (You squeeze, I'm going to drink the juice that is already here. And if you spend too long squeezing, I'll drink your share, too.)
Doing this in SL would be like driving a nail with a shovel; if it has to be done, and you have no other tool, you can do it, but in the time it takes, you can go a long way to buy a hammer (or rock) and end up with a better result in less time. (No matter how long and hard you squeeze, this turnip won't yield juice and if it does, you won't like it.)
If you work at minimum wage, you could buy a LOT of copies of a grade book program that does seating charts and a lot more for the same money. Or, if you insist that you already have SL, and it would be cheaper to use it, I can only say that by the time you have a usable product, you will be working for about .02 an hour. You'd be better off learning a programming language and creating it that way. (By the time you get juice, you'll be too old and tired to drink it.)
I'm just saying, use hammers to drive nails, shovels to dig holes, and SL to create eLearning experiences.
Thanks for the words of wisdom Walt. Maybe I wasn't being as clear as I could have been. I'm not looking for seating charts. I'm looking for a room designer that is interactive and specific to classrooms and their differentiated needs from primary to secondary to higher ed. There are many out there already but I hate to rely on 3rd party websites I can't update, control, etc. As you stated there are a ton of "seating chart templates" out there. Disagreeable or not I appreciate your comments.
Just to be clearer than I was previously, I mentioned seating charts because they include furniture design and placement. Admittedly the control you have can vary considerably from program to program. They probably don't offer the flexibility you need, and I'm sure none of them offer any design help or suggestions.
In SL, Drag and Drop can be done, but like Susi says, resize and rotate would require work beyond believing. If I were doing the designing, I would use SketchUp, but I don't know if you could ask the teachers to do it. You could create a template for them to use, but I think SketchUp may require a prohibitively high level of user competence. They would be learning how to use it, rather than thinking about classroom design. Just thinking out loud.
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