Forum Discussion
Drag and drop development advice needed - pyramid game
Hey guys. I'm working on a Storyline project game in which I'm trying to implement drag and drop.
The learner needs to figure out where in the pyramid hierarchy each text element fits and drag the...
Hi James - I've read and thought about your challenge here and have a couple of thoughts.
First, how large is the data set that you want your learners to work with? The examples you show are good, but one clear limitation to the topic (food) is that you have quite a lot of options that you present to the learner. So while you say you want them to show "where...each text element fits" you don't tell us how many text elements you have. And that could be where you can try a couple of different approaches.
- If you take "food" as your topic, then instead of presenting umpteen options, why not break this into a few smaller "bites" (pun intended)? That is, the learner needs to drag/drop "meat," "fruit," and "vegetables" into their (top) spots first. There would be 9 possible solutions.
- If you have them work with only one pyramid at a time, you are able to manage the possible interactions. So either mask off the other two (just put a transparent object over the ones they won't work with) or put the one you want them to work with on a separate layer (or slide, by branching).
The second idea is to consider what you really want your learners to demonstrate through the drag and drop in the first place. What have they been expected to learn up to this point? Or are you seeing this as a "what do you already know" activity?
I suggest you think about this first, since it will help you narrow down your interaction. Using drag and drop is a good way to see whether they understand classification, terminology, or can simply figure out matching shapes. And you don't need to set up a grocery aisle of choices to do that.
Good luck!
Hi Joe and thanks so much for your reply and efforts on my problem.
As this was time-sensitive I had to find a solution or workaround a few
weeks ago and I came close to scrapping the game and replacing it with
something simpler.
However, after bouncing the problem off a couple of people, I came to a
similar conclusion as you suggest, and was able to keep my initial pyramid
idea, in the end.
So what I have now is:
learners first choose the most appropriate pyramid top., then they are
allowed to proceed to
the first wing of the next level. Then they place those elements, one by
one.
Then they move to the 2nd wing, and so on.
It actually works quite well and has a sufficient degree of challenge (with
added time pressure I'm still working on).
So the moral of the story is, as always: CHUNKING.
As to your questions, there are 13 elements comprising the pyramid- 1 at
the top, 3 secondary elements and 9 tertiary.
Going through the sorting game process as I have it now, it takes roughly
2-3 minutes, which is in the right ballpark for what I intended.
The actual topic is "The pyramid principle" of communication, but it was
easier for me to paint a picture with the food categories.
Thanks again very much for your time and reply. It's appreciated!
