ePLATO Brief Specifications

1. ePLATO EDUWARE / PRESENTATION Module
The basic look and feel of all the screens is as below (with the title of the course appearing at the top of the screen):

All the screens are divided into the frames as shown above, with the same color schemes and button styles.

General scheme of the screen will be:

Background color: Blue
Slide Title on the frame Area 4
Footer (bottom left) for copyright text
Font used: Verdana
Font size: Variable for different section
Rounded borders for frames within screen
Tooltips for all the buttons on the screen

As shown in the screen above, the whole screen has been divided into 5 main areas of information.

· Area 1 : This area contains the video of the Facilitator being played out. This is synchronised with the slide being presented in Area 4. Also, the control of this video is done through the controls provided in Area 2. The video being played in the section will be provided in .wmv format and the recorded video is enlarged to fit it into this size. As the video is being played, a text at the bottom of the screen is displayed, rather like a Karaoke text, which will be exactly the same script as what the Facilitator is actually speaking in the video. The 2-line text keeps on changing as the video plays along.

· Area 2 : This area gives the user the control for the video being played. Common controls available in Industry standard media players are provided:

Play
Pause
Stop
Fast Rewind
Fast Forward
Mute
Volume Control

· Area 3 : This area contains all the Index labels for all the slides in windows explorer form. Also, if any label has a sub-label in that slide, that main label also expands once the user clicks on the main label item. Also, when the user clicks on the label items, the corresponding slide to that label item and the video is initiated. So, basically all the three areas Area 1, Area 3 and Area 4 are synchronised with each other.

· Area 4 : This area contains the course content that can include text, drawings, animations, pictures, videos as and when required. This is synchronised with the video being showed in Area 1.

· Area 5 : These buttons are the general buttons for all the slides for common control. They are in the following sequence:

Glossary
This option gives the user the capability to go through the list of glossary items. Once in the glossary items screen, user can search for a particular item name or go through all of them. Also, user is allowed to print the glossary terms, either one or all.

Script
This option displays the script that the speaker is speaking. This is more helpful for users not able to understand clearly what speaker is speaking and also for hearing impaired users. While on the script screen, user has the option to print that particular page or the whole script.

Print
This option prints the content, which is being displayed currently on the screen. This can be the normal slide, script or glossary. So, basedon the current screen content, print option prints the page. All prints have Copyright of Teleconsult on the bottom left of each page being printed along with the page numbers.

Online Evaluation
This option starts the online evaluation test for the users to test on what they have learnt so far. With this they will be able to evaluate and test their learning and how helpful was the e-Learning module.

Email
This option initiates the users local e-mail client program to initiate the send email option.

Help
This option displays the help for the users, mainly on the usage of the module, how to operate and some FAQ’s.

2. ePLATO EDITOR - USER INTERFACE

Preparation of course content follows some easily defined steps:


Step 1 Decide on the format and application programs to be used for your course materials.

Step 2 Design your course materials and depending upon what application you use, e.g MS PowerPoint, use Microsoft built-in converters, to convert your file to .html

Step 3 Prepare your Video Script. This should be in MS Word format and file saved as an .rtf

Step 4 Prepare your Glossary of terms in MS Word format

Step 5 Prepare your Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) in MS Word format

Step 6 Prepare your Assessment, Questions and Answers, in MS Word format

Step 7 Prepare your Video and convert the output using MS Window Movie Maker, into .wmv


NOTE:

The final produced course will largely depend upon the skill of the content developer in producing exciting and engaging course materials.

You are now ready to load the data into the ePLATO Editor.



The Editor is designed as a simple, easy to use, user friendly interface and no special computing knowledge or skills are required.

The content is imported into the Editor and the interface will automatically link the video, text and audio for synchronisation purposes.

Similarly, the Glossary is easily prepared through the Glossary User Interface.

The fields in the interface are simply filled-out and ePLATO does the rest and automatically links the word in the text to the explanation in the Glossary.