Meta Unit Content

• 1: Activity Chooser
• 2: Editing a Unit
• 3: Text Editor
• 4: Presenting Information

1 - Activity Chooser

When we introduced unit structure we presented the hierarchy of content in ARK as:

• unit
• section
• resource or activity

The smallest unit in the hierarchy is either a resource or an activity.

A resource is a piece of static, ungraded content designed to present information to the student.

An activity is an item that the student interacts with, either individually or with other students. Some activities can be graded and may contribute to the gradebook.

Using the Activity Chooser

Teachers can add activities and resources to their units using the activity chooser. To access the activity chooser, enable editing and click Add an activity or resource at the bottom of a section.

When you first open the Activity Chooser, you will see four tabs: All, Activities, Resources and Recommended.

The Recommended tab contains a shortlist of activities and resources recommended at the University of Divinity.

You can star your favourite or frequently used activities and resources and they will show in the Starred tab.

The activity icons are colour-coded according to their various functions:

• Green = communication
• Pink = assessment
• Blue = content
• Red(orange) = collaboration.

Further Resources

See the MoodleDocs page for more information: Activity Chooser (4.1)

2 - Editing a Unit

Unit Navigation

The navigation menu underneath the unit title provides access to the unit content, settings, participants list, grades and reports. The more dropdown menu provides access to the question bank, content bank and the course reuse page allowing content to be imported from one unit to another.

Unit index

The left navigation menu is collapsible and enables easy access to different parts of a unit.

Editing Mode

To add an activity or resource, rename titles or reorder content including sections/topics, you will need to enable editing. This can be done easily by clicking the Edit mode toggle next to your profile picture at the top right of the page.

To rename content, click the pencil icon and type your changes. Press enter to save or the esc key to cancel.

To reorder content, select the 3 dots to the right of an activity or resource and click the move icon. You can drag the item up or down the page, or drag it to a place in the left navigation menu. You can also reorder content using the left navigation menu.

From the 3 dots to the right of an item, you can also access the settings for that item, hide it, duplicate it or delete it.

You can also access these options for unit sections. A section can also be highlighted, which places a border around the section to mark it to learners. You might want to do this to aid students in finding the current week faster.

3 - Text Editor

When adding content to activities and resources, teachers will be able to write content directly to text areas in ARK using the text editor.

The text editor in ARK is a powerful interface, and is similar to working with other text editors such as Microsoft Word. However, this guide contains a few key recommendations to ensure your content is accessible to all users and is consistent with how learners access content across the internet and other University of Divinity resources.

If you’re unfamiliar with the interface, jump to the text editor interface first.

Styling content

Eye-tracking studies have consistently found that users scan content on the internet.¹ This makes the layout and styling of your content, including on ARK, particularly important. Screen reading software uses pre-defined markers to allow vision-impaired users to more easily navigate the page but it requires those entering content to be consistent with those conventions.

Headings and paragraphs

The style dropdown, marked (2) on the screenshot below, presents the key styles that a screen reader will use to navigate the page. Heading levels should indicate the rank of the content, with large headings being the most important, and headings of same importance being the same size. Skipping headings can be confusing and should be avoided.².

Emphasis

The top row of the editor gives easy access to bold and italics. These text effects can be difficult to read if they are used excessively and so should be reserved for emphasis.

• Bold text is useful for increasing the scannability of text and should be used to draw attention to key pieces of information. Avoid emboldening full sentences or paragraphs.
• Italics can help denote special terms. As with bold, avoid applying to full sentences or paragraphs.

The second row of the toolbar gives the ability to add underline, strikethrough, subscript and superscript.

• Underline (for example) is generally reserved on the web for marking hyperlinks. Using underline elsewhere can confuse readers who may expect it to be a link (if a student uses different colour/contrast settings for vision access, all underlined text may appear the same).
• Strikethrough (for example) can illustrate changes or corrections but can be difficult to read. Always provide an alternate representation of the text that is struck out if it needs to be read.
• Subscript (for _example) is most commonly used in science and mathematics.
• Superscripts (for ^example) are more commonly used for functions such as ordinals and footnotes. They may also be used for trademark (^TM).

Using links

To create a link, select the text and then click the chain icon, marked (9) on the screenshot below. Paste the URL into the field.

• The tick box “Open in a new window” will launch the page in a separate tab or window based on a users browser settings. A rule of thumb is to always load external links (that is, to sites other than ARK) so the student can access the resource and easily return to the content in the unit.
• For accessibility reasons, use descriptive links. For example:
  • The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) explain how to make web content more accessible.
• Using click here doesn’t tell a user where the link is going
• A raw URL is unhelpful for a screen reader. Such as:
  • https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/#iso

To remove a link, select the text with the link and click the break chain icon, marked (10) on the screenshot below.

Working with media

You can insert or embed images, video and interactive content in text areas using the text editor.

Inserting images

Most browsers will allow you to drag and drop an image from your computer to the text editor. Alternatively, you can click the image icon, marked (12) on the screenshot below. To edit the settings of an image already placed in a text area, click the image and then select the image icon.

The image properties dialogue allows you to paste a link to an image elsewhere on the internet. Always place an image description to assist students using a screen reader or to explain the image in the event the link breaks.

Where possible, resize the image before uploading it to ARK to reduce the file size and subsequent load time of your unit. As a guide, images covering the full width of a course area should be no more than 1200 pixels wide. Reduce the size accordingly for images only displaying at part width of the text area (see “Best Image Size for Websites” for more information).

You can change the size and relative position of the image using the image properties box. Select Auto size to avoid warping the image.

Inserting video and sound files

As with images, audio and video can be dragged and dropped into the text editor. Links to some video hosting sites such as Vimeo or YouTube will automatically be converted into embedded content (if you don’t want this behaviour, ask your ARKLO for instruction on disabling the Multimedia Filter).

Audio and video should be hosted on a hosting site such as Vimeo to avoid adding server load and slowing ARK for all users.

The insert media dialogue allows instructors to change the size of the content, adjust playback settings and add additional subtitles or captions.

Interactive content

H5P interactive content can be inserted with the H5P icon, marked (17) on the screenshot below. Creating H5P content is a more advanced concept and will be covered elsewhere. More information is available on MoodleDocs: H5P.

Working with the code

The HTML code, marked (16) on the screenshot below, allows instructors with HTML understanding to change the appearance in ways not available in the editor menus.

The text editor interface

The text editor is used extensively throughout ARK, including posting in forums, editing section headings, activity descriptions, quiz answers and the content of blocks.

There are two rows to the editor toolbar, which can be expanded using the expand button, marked 1 below:

Toolbar Row 1

Toolbar Row 2

Footnotes

4 - Presenting Information

Common Resources

There are multiple ways to present content or information to learners in ARK. The screenshot below shows the most common resources:

• (1) Description - the section title is followed by a description. Descriptions can be added to any activity or resource – there is also a description on the file resource.
• (2) Text and media area (previously called labels). There are three separate text and media area resources shown. The first is displaying a picture of the St Paschal’s campus, the second and third contain headings to break up the content. The first two could be combined with the description but leaving them separate makes it easier to move or duplicate parts of the content.
• (3) File resource, in this case it is a PDF. You can also add images and office documents as files.
• (4) Page resource. This shows content in a single page with all the functionality of the text editor.
• (5) Book resource. A book is a set of pages presented in a book-like format, allowing a table of contents and forward and back navigation.
• (6) URL resource. This allows you to provide links to resources elsewhere on the internet.

Selecting Resources

The above resources can be grouped into three types: presentation resources (descriptions and, text and media areas), external resources (file and URL) and internal resources (page and book) .

Presentation resources

Text and media areas (previously called labels) and descriptions help students navigate the sections in an ARK unit. They can function as signals – to point students to where information is or how it is arranged – or as direct instruction – to explain a concept or set up an activity.

Descriptions

Descriptions sit below an activity or resource and are set in the settings for the activity or resource. You can use a description to provide context for a particular activity or resource, or provide a citation.

Text and media areas

A text and media area is a way of presenting content on the section page and can be used to group or separate activities and resources, provide instruction or deliver content. In the example below, the heading is placed before the first reading to signal to students what the reading is for, a subsequent text and media area sets up an activity, and the video is placed in a text and media area for easy viewing.

External resources

In many cases, the learning resources you provide to students will be external to ARK, which you can either link to (such as an external website or Library Hub resource) or upload as a file (such as a PDF or other downloadable resource).

URL resource

A URL resource allows you to provide a link to a resource external to ARK such as the Library Hub or a website. While it is possible to hyperlink from any text in a text and media area or description, a URL resource allows you to set completion requirements to track or signal progress to the student.

File resource

A file resource allows you to share files with students. This is most commonly used to upload PDFs but can also be used to provide PPTs, Word documents or audio recordings.

Internal resources

ARK offers a few resources and activities to present content. The simplest of these are page and book. Pages and books both allow you to build web content in ARK with text, images and embedded content. They are considered resources as the only behaviour available to students is to view the content. Both pages and books are easily printed to PDF by students.

Other options: other methods of presenting content include the Lesson activity and the H5P activity. These activities are more complicated to setup and will be covered elsewhere.

Page resource

Page resources are best used to present content that doesn’t need extensive scaffolding for students to process or to present information that would take up too much space on the section page. For example, a page might be used to provide an extended bibliography for a topic or to collate instructions for a learning task such as an assessment.

Book resource

A book is a set of pages presented in a book-like format. Books are best used to present related ideas that together are too much to contain to a single page. For example, prior to a lecture on the prophets, you might wish to ensure students have a basic overview of the content and themes of each. You could create a book with a short introduction to each of them.