wiki:BoltRef

Version 4 (modified by davea, 16 years ago) (diff)

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Bolt reference manual

A Bolt course consists of:

  • Lessons: any web-based teaching material
  • Exercises, used for reinforcement and/or assessment.
  • A course document describing the order in which lessons and exercises are shown.

Lessons

A Lesson contains instructional material. It may be either an HTML or PHP file. It may contain embedded audio, video, Flash, or any other content. Some restrictions:

  • It shouldn't contain enclosing <html> or <body> tags (Bolt will supply these, as well as navigational header and footer).
  • It shouldn't contain any hyperlinks (Bolt will supply navigational links).

If a lesson is implemented as a PHP script, information about the student is available to it in a global variable $student, This information may be used to customize the page. The available information is: 

$student.sex;    // 0=unknown, 1=male, 2=female
$student.age;    // in years
$student.country;

For example, suppose you want to use a larger font for students over 50: 

if ($student.age > 50) {
    echo "<style>
        body {font-size: large;}
        </style>
    ";
}

Note: an alternative way to vary content based on student attributes is to use separate lesson files, selected in the course document.

Exercises

Exercises are PHP script that call Bolt API functions. Here's an example consisting of a multiple-choice question: 

<?php
echo 'Conifers are so named because:';
bolt_exclusive_choice(
   array(
      'They carry their seeds in cones.'
      'They are cone-shaped.',
      'They originated during the Coniceous era.',
   ),
);
?>

Each time the question is shown, the choices are shown in a random order. The correct choice is the first element of the array.

Here's an example that shows an image; a correct answer is a click in the indicated subrectangle. 

<?php
echo "Click on the dog's nose:<p>";
bolt_image_rect(
   'dog.jpg',
   array(100, 60, 110, 70)
);
?>

Bolt supplies functions for other types of questions, such as inclusive multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank. An exercise can include multiple questions.

Course documents

The structure of a Bolt course is defined by a PHP script. The script calls Bolt API functions to create a hierarchy of "units". Each unit has a "name", used to identify the unit within the course (it is now shown to students).

The basic types of units are lessons and exercises. Each has accompanying filename. For example, the following course consists of a single lesson: 

<?php
return lesson(
    name('lesson 1'),
    filename('lesson_1.php');
);
?>

Sequences

Here's an example of a course with two lessons followed by an exercise: 

<?php
return sequence(
    name('course'),
    lesson(
        name('lesson 1'),
        filename('bolt_sample_lesson1.php')
    ),
    lesson(
        name('lesson 2'),
        filename('bolt_sample_lesson2.php')
    ),
    exercise(
        name('exercise 1'),
        filename('bolt_sample_exercise1.php')
    ),
);
?>

Course items can be grouped into sets; for example: 

{
   "type": "set",
   "show_n": 1,
   "order": "random",
   "items": {
      {
      ...
      }
   }
}

The attributes of a set include:

  • show_n: the number of items in the set to show
  • order: whether to show the items sequentially or randomly

Items (lessons, exercises, and sets) can include properties, e.g.: 

{
   "type": "lesson",
   "name": "The Linnaean hierarchy",
   "file": "linnaean.html"
   "properties": {
      "verbal_level": 12,
      "detail_level": 0.8
   }
},

When Bolt has a choice of items (e.g. when it encounters a set from which a single item is to be shown) it calls, for each item, a course-supplied matchmaking function, passing to it the student object (which includes demographics such as age) and the item's properties (represented as a PHP object). The matchmaking function returns a number representing the estimated effectiveness of that item for that student, and Bolt chooses the item with the highest value.

Memory refresh

Bolt offers a memory refresh system that periodically repeats exercises and, if necessary, lessons. Memory research suggests that this is necessary for students to shift learning to long-term memory. This mechanism works as follows:

  • A sequence of inter-refresh intervals is defined. For example, (7, 28) means that an exercise should be repeated 7 days after it is first taken, and then every 28 days thereafter.
  • Bolt provides a function that returns the set of items, for a given student, for which refresh is due. Your course can use this function to implement a "Review now" button on web pages.
  • Bolt provides a "review mode" in which the student is presented with exercises due for review.