[FM Discuss] Book Sprint Badges

[Mick Fuzz]

I've started a chapter here.
http://booki.flossmanuals.net/audacity/_edit/

Feel free to comment on the email list or in edits to the chapter. I'll be able to spend a bit more time on this next week.
nice one
Mick


  Notes for new version of Audacity Manual

*Overall notes.*

My impression (mick speaking) is that we don't want to replicate the 
completeness of the online manual at audacity  - 
http://manual.audacityteam.org/help/manual/ - rather we want a linear 
book like summary of the most vital parts of this to fit into a 100 -200 
page book, which can be the base for a course, and can be supplemented 
with activities. How do these activities fit in? They could be

* part of the narrative as an end of section recap

* appendices

* a separate activity workbook (separate manual)

I like the idea of having the activities as end of section recaps. Again 
it sets us apart as offering something different, something that you can 
print off, read as an ebook, and work through.

*Open Badges *

With reference to Open Badges how best would this fit in to the manual? 
The activities are probably going to be very similar in content (but 
simplified) versions of these tutorials
http://manual.audacityteam.org/help/manual/man/tutorials.html

Let's take a simple one as an example.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/help/manual/man/tutorial_editing_an_existing_file.html

This covers the following task; open an audio file, trim it add a fade 
as save it again. It need the following skills, use open file dialogue 
and navigate to audio file, use zoom tool, use selection tool to cut a 
section of audio, use fade effect, export file to mp3.

There are some aspects that could be stripped out to make the activity 
more simple.

So first question. Is this one badge or is it 5 badges one for each 
skill used.

If this group of skills is one badge, then  I could imagine 3-6 other 
similar badges for Audacity; configuring your set up, multi track 
working, recording an audio report / narration over music, one to three 
'advanced' topics.

Second question is how do you test the knowledge. Here are some options

*Quiz.* You take information from the previous chapters and ask 
questions which can be answered as multiple choice.
Example: When you export your audacity project to a file you can save in 
different formats. Some are compressed and some are uncompressed. Why 
would you choose an */uncompressed/* format.

a) because I don't care about the sound quality

b) because I want the file to be small enough to fit on a usb drive

c) because I want to maintain as high sound quality for the file as I can

Other examples could be What is a waveform,  etc.

*Honesty Check of skills based on activity:*

This check would be based on or an integral part of the activity. It is 
a question that checks if the reader has completed the task and has 
therefore demontrated the skills that are being tested / badged. These 
questions could be asked as a checklist at the end of the activity.

Example:

To have completed this activity you should have completed the following 
tasks and demonstrated these skills.

  * Did you successfully use the Open > File dialogue box to import a
    file into Audacity? [tickbox]
  * Did you use the 'transport toolbar' to successfully Play, pause,
    stop, skip to start and skip to end of the file.
  * Did you use the Zoom In and Zoom Out functions to get a closer look
    at the waveform of the audio
  * Did you use the Select tools and the Trim function to choose one
    part of the file and get rid of the rest?
  * Did you use the Export function to export the edited audio to a
    compressed audio file (mp3 or ogg)

I think that by each box there should also be a link which says 
something like 'No - I couldn't do that, Click here to go back to help 
on how to 'Use the Transport Toolbar'

In this way the user works through the activity, can go back to the 
original help chapters, and then when completed tick the boxes, in order 
to get their badge.

Ok so that is what I've come up with so far. Feedback would definitely 
be appreciated. (mick speaking)

*General Audacity Manual structure notes *

For me it would also be good to rework the structure of the book. The 
key difference of the FM over the online manual is its linear nature. 
Let's work with that to make sure that the book is engaging.

The What is Audio section is great but after that you have 40 pages of 
quite dry Install and Interface notes before getting to opening a file. 
Can we rework this order somehow to draw the reader in more? Maybe 
including full screenshots as part of the appendix.

Maybe we could arrange the meat of the manual into three sections.

* Getting Started

* Taking it further

* Advanced Use

There could be one or two activities at the end of each section which 
test skills and could be badged.

*Updating exisiting Audacity Manual chapters notes *

I made some notes about changes that need to be made moving from version 
1.2 to version 2 and the priorities. These are in the notes tab but I 
can't get to them right now.

Here is a summary...

*Install* The install screenshots could do with updating but you could 
probably get away with a little tweak.

The*Interface *also needs updating but I think could be replaced with a 
summary and linking out to the online manual
http://manual.audacityteam.org/help/manual/man/menu_reference.html

(this review needs completing)




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