[Year 12 IT Apps] User guide/documentation for U401 advice

Thu Jul 23 12:36:58 AEST 2015

Hi Laurie and others,
Agreed, a well-designed spreadsheet should need no User Documentation….there is almost no point to it. However, I’ve written several little programs in Excel for school like timetable converters and sports recording etc, that (which I think) are very easy to use. However, others do have difficulty with spreadsheets and baulk at the mere mention of them, and this is where a small amount of User Doc becomes a powerful ally. I often attach a short video walkthrough and find most users can generally follow along with it.
Using that logic, for this SAC, I get my students to use a program like Screencast-O-Matic (free download here<http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/>) and make a 90 second walkthrough. Design wise, they do a quick storyboard and script outline, not that it’s required in the SD, but because I want them to still go through the processes.
I stay away from PowerPoint on this as I try to teach them to use the right tool for the job, I think PowerPoint does it about as well as using a butter knife to undo a screw, yes it works, but there are better tools. At the other extreme, I think making a website for a spreadsheet’s documentation is overkill, there’ll be students spending a couple of lessons and stressing out creating a site for one sixth of the available marks.
What we might find self-evident may not be self-evident to someone else.
My 0.000053 bitcoin worth
Cheers
Damien

Damien Atkinson-Buck
Head of Learning Area: Technology/Arts

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From: Laurie Savage [mailto:08327998 at pvgc.vic.edu.au]
Sent: Thursday, 23 July 2015 10:44 AM
To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Year 12 IT Apps] User guide/documentation for U401 advice

One of the problems with the user documentation part of the project is that a well designed spreadsheet should be almost self evident or self-documenting!

Laurie

Laurie Savage
https://sites.google.com/a/pvgc.vic.edu.au/mr-savage/home

On 23 July 2015 at 09:32, Andrew Pate <arp at mentonegrammar.net<mailto:arp at mentonegrammar.net>> wrote:
HI all
I have also used powerpoint in the past. This year my students have the skills to build a few simple pages and lay them out effectively with div and css or use a framework to do so.
They were agast to think that within the SAC on spreadsheet they basically have to repeat SAC1 (albeit on a smaller scale)

I think Powerpoint easily satisfies the criteria, and if the purpose is to demonstrate knowledge of help system structure and style, then good.
Andrew.

From: itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au> [mailto:itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au>] On Behalf Of Ciotti, George W
Sent: Thursday, 23 July 2015 9:10 AM
To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Year 12 IT Apps] User guide/documentation for U401 advice

Thanks Mark.

I have to disagree though, pdf is a multimedia authoring platform of great versatility. I suppose it comes down to knowing how to get these features out of it. But one issue is that students are not allowed to use the Acrobat application that enables these features. That means more hardcore InDesign work.
Last time I used Powerpoint and it worked successfully. Given that we're talking about a small component of the SAC it ranks in a similar league as the Web site prototype? As long as students can demonstrate an understanding of how a user guide/documentation can be applied to their solution and this can be operated onscreen it then satisfies the requirement. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Cheers

George

UHS Website Manager
IT/Arts/Design/Tech Domain
University High School
77 Story St
Parkville 3052
mobile: 0412 934 782
phone: 9347 2022

From: Mark <mark at vceit.com<mailto:mark at vceit.com>>
Reply-To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List <itapps at edulists.com.au<mailto:itapps at edulists.com.au>>
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2015 14:15:16 +1000
To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List <itapps at edulists.com.au<mailto:itapps at edulists.com.au>>
Subject: Re: [Year 12 IT Apps] User guide/documentation for U401 advice

Hi George

The relevant key skills for ITA U4O1 is "use web authoring or multimedia authoring software to create onscreen user documentation".

Interactivity does not seem to be a criterion. Multimedia is.
The question is whether a PDF can be called 'multimedia'.
Strictly speaking, it can contain text and images, so it's minimally multimedia. But I'd suggest it is stretching the definition of 'multimedia' until it squeals...

I've argued in the past that MS Powerpoint is a valid multimedia authoring tool, and Paula wasn't even too sure about that.
But I think she now accepts Powerpoint can create true multimedia/multimodal (for 2016) presentations.

I'd be uneasy about hoping that a PDF qualifies as 'multimedia'. Does it do video/animation of any variety?  Audio/music?
I've always treated PDF as a format that is really designed for printing, not primarily for onscreen presentation.

Another 2 cents foolishly frittered away.

Mark

On 22 July 2015 at 13:53, Ciotti, George W <ciotti.george.w at edumail.vic.gov.au<mailto:ciotti.george.w at edumail.vic.gov.au>> wrote:
Hi,

I am looking to get my students to use InDesign to construct the Documentation component of the 401 SAC. It will be turned into a pdf and will demonstrate some interactivity. Before going down this route, I was wondering whether this satisfies the requirements for this component. I think I remember reading that PDFs do not meet requirements because they lack typical online features. Which of course is not true. It certainly falls in the multimedia, interactive and useable online criteria.

Thanks in advance

George

UHS Website Manager
IT/Arts/Design/Tech Domain
University High School
77 Story St
Parkville 3052
mobile: 0412 934 782
phone: 9347 2022

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