The Connexions Roadmap
The
Roadmap is a tool for navigating your way through a
Connexions course. It consists of the Connexions toolbar and the
Courseview. You can use the Roadmap to move from module to module
within a course or to return to your place in the course after you
have branched off the course path set up by the instructor or linked
to another Internet site.
Note:
Currently the Roadmap is available only with the Mozilla
and the Netscape 7.x browsers.
The Roadmap Courseview
The main part of the Roadmap is the
Courseview and is shown
in
Figure 3. Courseview is the left panel in the Roadmap
and displays a listing of modules for the course you are browsing. To
use Courseview, or to view modules, you must be connected to the
Internet. If you do not have a course loaded, the top of Courseview
states "No Course Selected", and the Courseview panel is empty.
Sizing the Courseview Panel
To change the size of the Courseview panel, click the yellow portion
of the vertical bar between courseview and drag the box to size the panel.
If you click the yellow bar once or if you drag the bar to less than
the minimum panel size, the panel collapses. Click the yellow bar once
to open the panel again.
Loading a Course
To load a course, click the
Course link at the
top of the Courseview panel. Then select Open from the drop-down menu.
See
subfigure 4.1.
This opens a dialog box for selecting a course. See
subfigure 4.2. Choose a course from the list
and click
OK. This loads your course and displays the
list of modules in the Courseview. See
Figure 5.
Note:
It may sometimes be necessary to load a course using a URL.
This is not the same as using a URL in a web page.
To load a course through the Roadmap, you must use
the Choose Course dialog. Type the URL in the "Enter course URL" field
and click OK.
Navigating with the Courseview
To begin navigating through a course, click the first module
title of the course. If the first item in the course is a grouping
of modules instead of a single module (denoted by a box with a plus "+"
sign to the left of the title), click the box or double-click
the grouping title to expand the grouping, and then click the first
module title in the grouping. The module loads into the center window.
The title of the currently displayed module is highlighted in the
Courseview panel. When you expand a grouping title, the plus sign in
the box is replaced by a minus "-" sign.
You can view other modules in the course by clicking their titles.
Or you can follow the path of the course by using the
Previous
and
Next buttons on the
toolbar.
When you display another module in the currently loaded course, the title
in the Courseview for the new module is highlighted automatically.
This happens regardless of how you loaded the new module - by typing in the
URL, by clicking Previous and Next on the toolbar,
or by clicking a link in one module that takes you to another module in
the course. The title of the module being displayed is highlighted as long
as it is within the loaded course. If you leave the course, the title of the
last course module you viewed is highlighted.
Annotations
An annotation is a note that is associated with a specific point
in the text of a course or module. These notes do not appear
within the text. They appear in a dialog box that is opened
when you click the annotation icon that appears in the
text. Authors, instructors, and students can enter annotations.
Authors and instructors enter course annotations. They are
accessible to anyone viewing the text. Students enter personal
annotations. They are private, user-specific, and can be viewed
only by the person who entered them, like a bookmark in an
Internet browser.
Note:
You must have the Connexions Roadmap installed to use
the annotations feature.
Viewing Annotations
To view an annotation, click the icon. A dialog box opens
and displays the annotation. Course annotations appear in a
"Course Annotation" dialog box. Personal annotations appear in
an "Annotation Body" dialog box. The icons in the text vary
according to the annotation type. You can hide the
annotation icons if you consider them distracting while
reading the text of the course or module. To show or hide
the annotation icons, use the following steps:
- Click the Annotations link at the top
of the Courseview. A menu of two items opens: Add
and Show/Hide.
- Click Show/Hide. A menu
containing two items opens: Course Annotations
and Personal Annotations. If a check mark appears
to the left of an item, the icons for that item will be visible in
the text.
- Click an annotation item to add or remove the check
mark, as desired.
Entering a Personal Annotation
To enter personal annotations in the text of a course or module,
use the following steps:
- Highlight the text where you want to add the annotation.
- Right click your mouse on the highlighted text. A menu box
appears near the cursor.
- Select
Annotate Current Selection with Roadmap
from the menu. The Annotation body dialog
box opens.
- Type the wording of your annotation in the text box.
- Click the down arrow in the "Type" field and select the type of
annotation from the drop-down menu. The types are: Comment, See Also,
Question, Explanation, Example, Change, and Advice.
- Click the down arrow in the "Language" field and select the
language for the annotation from the drop-down menu.
- Click
Post to record the annotation. An icon
appears in the text where you entered the annotation.
Deleting a Personal Annotation
To remove an annotation, view the annotation and click Delete.
This button only appears in the "Annotation Body" dialog when you display
an existing annotation. Connexions deletes the annotation and removes
the annotation's icon from the text.