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'''FLAX''' helps automate the production and delivery of practice exercises for learning English. You, the teacher, can easily create exercises from the textual content of digital libraries. You can also create your own digital library collections.  
'''FLAX''' helps automate the production and delivery of practice exercises for learning English. Teachers can easily create exercises from the textual content of digital libraries. They can also create their own digital library collections, add them to their course as resources, and, optionally, share them within their institution. There is a tutorial introduction to FLAX [http://flax.nzdl.org/moodle/course/view.php?id=2 here], in which you can login as a guest and do example exercises—and [http://flax.nzdl.org/moodle/course/view.php?id=3 here] is a FLAX sandbox course where you can create your own exercises and build your own digital library collection.


The FLAX module is a contributed activity module released for Moodle 1.9.x.  
Extensive documentation on the system appears in [http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~ihw/FLAX/Book%20of%20FLAX/ The book of FLAX] (also available as [http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~ihw/FLAX/Book.pdf PDF]).


==Activity Types==
The FLAX module is a contributed activity module. It has been thoroughly tested on Moodle 2.1. (The current version is a comprehensive update to and expansion of the original release for Moodle 1.9.)
* Scrambled Sentences exercises - This exercise type asks students to move highlighted words into the correct position in a sentence.  
* Word Guessing exercises - This exercise type asks students to type missing words into the correct place in a document.  
* Predicting Words and Phrases exercises - This exercise type lets students brainstorm words and phrases pertinent to a particular topic.


==Settings==
==Accessing FLAX==
* Exercise name
When you install the FLAX module, two new items appear on Moodle's <i>Add an activity</i> menu:
* Design exercise
* Manage my FLAX collections
* Maximum grade
* Open exercise
* Close exercise


==Design exercise==
* <i>FLAX language exercise</i>, for designing activities and adding them to your course
Teachers design exercises of each of the three types, based on the contents of a digital library collection. In all cases the design proceeds by filling out a simple form.
* <i>FLAX digital library</i>, for creating digital library collections and adding them to your course.


After you have designed scrambled sentences and word guessing exercises, you can review the exercise and override the system's choices about which sentences that have been chosen (for scrambled sentences) or which words have been omitted (for word guessing). This puts the teacher firmly in control! You can also create a printable version of the exercise.
==Designing activities==
FLAX offers the following types of exercise:


=== heading?? ===
* Scrambled Sentences. Students move highlighted words into the correct position in a sentence. Click the mouse on a word and drop it where it belongs.
* Scrambled Paragraphs. Students move paragraphs into the correct position in a passage. Drag and drop a paragraph to where it belongs.
* Split Sentences. Students match the first part of sentences with the second part by dragging them into the correct position.
* Punctuation and Capitalization. Students restore punctuation and/or capitalization to a paragraph from which it has been stripped.
* Word Guessing. Students type missing words into gaps in a document.
* Completing Collocations. Students type missing words into gaps in collocations that have been identified by the system.
* Image Guessing. Played by two cooperative players, the "describer" and the "guesser", who cooperate over chat, the describer describes the picture on his screen and the guesser tries to identify it from several similar pictures.


* Scrambled sentences. You can select which document, or documents, the sentences come from—either by naming the documents or by choosing their difficulty level. You can choose between simple (single clause) or complex (multiclause) sentences. You can restrict the sentences to active or passive voice, and specify what tense they should have or what modal verb they should contain. You can specify how many words the sentences should have. You can even give a word or words that the target sentences must contain.  
Teachers design exercises based on the contents of a digital library collection. The design proceeds by filling out a simple form, which is slightly different for each of the exercise types.


You can determine how many sentences are in the exercises, the number of words to scramble, and whether the sentences should be presented in the same order or a random order that is different for every student.
==Creating digital library collections==


* Word guessing. You select a document (if you like, you can specify a difficulty level first). You can either choose the words to omit based on the gap size (and specify the gap size), or choose certain parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, or adjectives. You can select what kind of hint to give.
Exercises are based on material (usually text) in a digital library collection. You choose which collection when you create the exercise. FLAX is distributed with two standard collections, but you can also build your own collection from your own documents (or ones on the Web). It's easy! – just cut and paste text into a Web form. You can add images, and audio (for dictation-style exercises).  


You can choose whether students work in individual mode, by themselves, or in class mode, in which case the entire class can compete by guessing words as quickly as possible. As soon as one class member guesses a word correctly the system updates everyone else's display to make that word unavailable for guessing. For a fair competition, get all your students to work together at the same time! The top three scoring students are shown on everyone's screen, and when you mouse over the scoreboard you see how everyone is doing. Class mode exercises also contain a chat facility that allows participants to type messages to one another.
If you have installed your own FLAX server (see below), any collections you build are shared within your Moodle site. However, if you use the public demo server, collections are visible to anyone.


* Predicting words and phrases. This traditional pre-reading activity is particularly suitable for use in the classroom, in class mode. Students compete to guess as many relevant words as possible, which stimulates interest and facilitates comprehension before they begin reading. It can also be used to brainstorm suitable vocabulary for a forthcoming essay, or serve as a retrospective activity where learners recall and review a list of expressions and collocations that are important for accurately expressing ideas relevant to a topic.
As well as creating exercises based on the contents of a digital library collection, you can make the entire collection, or selected documents in it, available to your students from within Moodle.


You create it just like the other exercise types. Select a document (if you like, you can specify a difficulty level first). You can determine what kinds of words should not be presented for guessing (by default conjunctions, modal verbs, proper nouns, personal pronouns, prepositions and determiners are excluded from guessing). You can choose whether students see just the article title or the first paragraph as well. For this exercise, class mode is the default.
==Grading==
All FLAX exercises can be used in Practice mode or Graded mode, as specified in the ''Maximum Grade'' part of the form that you see when you add a Moodle activity. In most exercises, students click ''Check answer'' to see what they have got right and then move on to the next question. In Practice mode they can continue to work on the same question until they get it right, or move back and forth among the questions as they choose, and there's a ''Summary report'' button that shows them the correct answer, and how well they have done.


==Grading==
Teachers can view a Moodle report that shows how each student did on each part of the exercise.
All FLAX exercises can be used in Practice mode or Graded mode, as specified in the Maximum Grade part of the Moodle form that you see when you select Add a FLAX language learning exercise. In "Practice mode" Scrambled Sentences exercises (like the ones given above) students can click Check answer to see which words they have got right and Next question to go to the next sentence. In "Graded mode" there is just a single button: Check answer and go to next question.  


==The FLAX server==
==The FLAX server==
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The server is open source code that can be easily downloaded and installed. It runs on Linux, Windows, and Mac.  You specify the server address when you install the Moodle FLAX module.
The server is open source code that can be easily downloaded and installed. It runs on Linux, Windows, and Mac.  You specify the server address when you install the Moodle FLAX module.


==Building your own digital library collection==
 
FLAX is distributed with a few standard digital library collections. All the exercises above used the Best of Password. When you create an exercise, you choose the collection it is based on and the exercise type.


== See also ==
== See also ==
* moodle.org discussion link to come! - discuss the module here
* [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=138769 moodle.org discussion]- provide feedback and discuss the module here
* cvs repository link to come! - browse and download the code
* [http://flax.nzdl.org/greenstone3/flax?a=fp&sa=downloads FLAX download] - download and install the FLAX server
* module and plugin dbase link to come - FLAX Module entry at moodle.org
* [http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~ihw/FLAX/Book%20of%20FLAX/ The book of FLAX] - comprehensive documentation ( [http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~ihw/FLAX/Book.pdf  PDF version])
<!-- * [http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=3065 FLAX Module entry at moodle.org] - obsolete -->


[[Category:Contributed code]]
[[Category:Contributed code]]

Latest revision as of 01:25, 10 August 2012

FLAX helps automate the production and delivery of practice exercises for learning English. Teachers can easily create exercises from the textual content of digital libraries. They can also create their own digital library collections, add them to their course as resources, and, optionally, share them within their institution. There is a tutorial introduction to FLAX here, in which you can login as a guest and do example exercises—and here is a FLAX sandbox course where you can create your own exercises and build your own digital library collection.

Extensive documentation on the system appears in The book of FLAX (also available as PDF).

The FLAX module is a contributed activity module. It has been thoroughly tested on Moodle 2.1. (The current version is a comprehensive update to and expansion of the original release for Moodle 1.9.)

Accessing FLAX

When you install the FLAX module, two new items appear on Moodle's Add an activity menu:

  • FLAX language exercise, for designing activities and adding them to your course
  • FLAX digital library, for creating digital library collections and adding them to your course.

Designing activities

FLAX offers the following types of exercise:

  • Scrambled Sentences. Students move highlighted words into the correct position in a sentence. Click the mouse on a word and drop it where it belongs.
  • Scrambled Paragraphs. Students move paragraphs into the correct position in a passage. Drag and drop a paragraph to where it belongs.
  • Split Sentences. Students match the first part of sentences with the second part by dragging them into the correct position.
  • Punctuation and Capitalization. Students restore punctuation and/or capitalization to a paragraph from which it has been stripped.
  • Word Guessing. Students type missing words into gaps in a document.
  • Completing Collocations. Students type missing words into gaps in collocations that have been identified by the system.
  • Image Guessing. Played by two cooperative players, the "describer" and the "guesser", who cooperate over chat, the describer describes the picture on his screen and the guesser tries to identify it from several similar pictures.

Teachers design exercises based on the contents of a digital library collection. The design proceeds by filling out a simple form, which is slightly different for each of the exercise types.

Creating digital library collections

Exercises are based on material (usually text) in a digital library collection. You choose which collection when you create the exercise. FLAX is distributed with two standard collections, but you can also build your own collection from your own documents (or ones on the Web). It's easy! – just cut and paste text into a Web form. You can add images, and audio (for dictation-style exercises).

If you have installed your own FLAX server (see below), any collections you build are shared within your Moodle site. However, if you use the public demo server, collections are visible to anyone.

As well as creating exercises based on the contents of a digital library collection, you can make the entire collection, or selected documents in it, available to your students from within Moodle.

Grading

All FLAX exercises can be used in Practice mode or Graded mode, as specified in the Maximum Grade part of the form that you see when you add a Moodle activity. In most exercises, students click Check answer to see what they have got right and then move on to the next question. In Practice mode they can continue to work on the same question until they get it right, or move back and forth among the questions as they choose, and there's a Summary report button that shows them the correct answer, and how well they have done.

Teachers can view a Moodle report that shows how each student did on each part of the exercise.

The FLAX server

FLAX operates within Moodle but communicates with an external digital library server. The FLAX project in New Zealand has arranged for a demo server to be available to all Moodle users on a trial basis. The server is open source code that can be easily downloaded and installed. It runs on Linux, Windows, and Mac. You specify the server address when you install the Moodle FLAX module.


See also