In this week's videos, we'll be focusing on Dynamic State Descriptions and their design patterns. Dynamic State Descriptions are the object names often labels, phrases, and sentences that identify and describe representations and objects that appear, disappear, or in some way change in the interactive. Dynamic State Descriptions update silently, with the interactive appearing, disappearing, or changing silently in the background. Whenever a learner chooses to read through state descriptions, it's the Dynamic State Descriptions that are always there representing the current state of the interactive. The Dynamic State Descriptions ensure that the state descriptions are always accurate or in sync, even as a learner interacts and changes the state of the interactive. Dynamic State Descriptions can typically be found within the summary section and the play area and depending on the complexity of the interactive in the control area. Sometimes object names, hints, and help text, are dynamic as well. Overall, Dynamic State Descriptions typically make up a small but important percentage of the overall state descriptions. In a moment, we'll investigate Ohm's Law Simulation for dynamic descriptions. In that sim, there are about 220 total words in the state descriptions. Depending on the current state of the sim, was about 65 of these words making up the Dynamics State Descriptions. There are nine dynamic phrases within the state descriptions contained in two bulleted lists and one single sentence, with the remainder of the words and phrases being static. But without those Dynamic State Descriptions, the state descriptions would be much less useful once the learner interact with the Sim. By including Dynamics State Descriptions, the learner always has a fully accurate state to return to, for example, access to an accurate big picture summary of the Sim and access to key details of the state of the Sim objects that may have changed during the interaction. Here's the alley view for Ohm's Law. Let's look through the state descriptions of the summary section to identify the Dynamic State Description. We have the first, second, and third paragraphs that are described in a way that are always true. They are static. In the simulation or representations are shown and the interactive objects that are available are always the same. These can be conveyed with Static State Descriptions. In the fourth paragraph, we have a good indicator where near some Dynamic State Descriptions. It reads right now, followed by a list of three items which reads currently without having interacted with the same at all. Voltage V is 4.5 volts. Resistance R is 500 Ohms. Current I is 9.0 Milliamps. Let's interact with the Sim and then come back to this list. You may have noticed that as I change the sliders in the Sim, the list was updated with each change. Each item in the list is a phrase with a dynamic segment or string of text. The name, variable letter in the equation and the verb is don't change. In this example, only the values for voltage, resistance, and current are dynamic. In the case of current, the units are also dynamic. I can switch between using milli-amps or amps. Notice how the surrounding phrases remain the same and that the rest of the summary also did not change as we interacted with the Sim. Natural language does not always like to conform to a consistent structure, as we'll see in future examples. But here in Ohm's Law Simulation, we have a nice simple example of three dynamic phrases that also have the same sentence structure. We tried to keep the overall amount of changed the wording within individual phrases, sentences, and paragraphs as minimal as possible to maintain consistency. Consistency in language make the state descriptions easier to read and can help emphasize the changed details that do occur in the state descriptions. If the whole sentence, paragraph, or more changes significantly each time the learner interacts, it could contribute to confusion for the learner. We want the learner focused on exploring and investigating the math and science concepts in the simulation, not focused on understanding how the descriptions work or how to get the information they need from the state descriptions. Now, let's take a look at how these dynamic descriptions in the summary section are documented in the design document. I'll jump down to the dynamic part of the summary. Or Sim summary. Sim summary? Dynamic State of Sim. Here we see the same list. Within each list item where the dynamic part of the description would be, is a word was incurred in brackets. We use curly double brackets to communicate to everyone on the team that what is within the brackets is intended to be dynamic. We then make it clear what goes in between the curly brackets. In this case, the dynamic values are quantitative. Instead of listing out all the possible numeric values, we just name the actual value. Here we have voltage value, resistance value, and current value. For current, we also have the current unit name, which can be either milliamps or amps. So we make a note about that too. For dynamic descriptions that use qualitative values, that is dynamic text rather than numbers, we can indicate a parameter name just as we did here or we can just use an example parameter within the curly double brackets and then we typically include a link to a table that lists out all of the possible parameter values that will go into that spot in the phrase. Let's go back to the Ohm's law alley view to explore an example where a dynamic qualitative text-based parameter is needed. Here we are in the Ohm's law alley view again. If we look in the play area of Ohm's law, will find a sentence describing the current state of the equation. To start the sentence reads, in equation, letter V is much, much larger than letter I and comparable to letter R. As we interact with the same, the sentence changes. If I increase the value of the voltage V to the maximum value, this sentence now reads, in equation, letter V is much, much larger than letter I and slightly larger than letter R. Next, if I decrease resistance to the lowest value, this sentence now reads, in equations letter V is much, much smaller than letter I and much, much larger than letter R. Again, you may have noticed that as I made those extreme changes to the Slido along the way, this sentence was updating in the state descriptions, always accurate, reflecting the current state of the same. Now we've seen that this sentence has at least three variations and while there are many similarities across those variations, there were also lots of differences, including the use of many different phrases, such as much, much larger than, slightly larger than, much, much smaller than and comparable to. Let's go back to the design doc and see how we document this final mix sentence. Here we are again in the Ohm's law design document. Let's jump down to the equation in the play area , Ohm's law equation. As we mentioned before, there are two sentences that describe the equation. Only the second one is actually dynamics so we use the double brackets to indicate where the dynamic text will go. The dynamic text, in this case, describes the comparative size of letter V with respect to the size of letter I and letter R. Down below in the scales and parameters section, we have a table listing the different possible phrases of dynamic texts that will go in between the double brackets. I'll jump there to find the list. Here we are Ohm's law equation parameters. Notice there are seven phrases or seven parameters that describes the comparative size of letter V with respect to letter I and letter R. One of seven parameters is slotted into describe the size of letter V in comparison to the size of letter I and then a second parameter from the same list is slotted in to describe the size of letter V in comparison to the size of letter R. The different phrases in this list form a qualitative scale. Qualitatively describing the comparative size of the letters in the equation from much, much smaller than, to much, much larger than. The ideal number of different phrases in this qualitative scale was not known in advance. That's what we had to work out. Each interactive will have different needs. After a few iterations, we decided that seven parameters for comparative size was enough detail to meet the needs of this sum. We'll go into more detail about qualitative scales and parameters this week. The main thing you want to do as you create your qualitative scales is to test each parameter within the surrounding phrase. In the design doc, I personally like to link the parameters to where they occur in the actual state or responsive descriptions. Another way to create and test dynamic phrases is to use a tool we are working on. We call it the dynamic phrase builder. You can find a link to it in this week's resources and in course resources. It helps us design and think about dynamic phrases needed for dynamic state descriptions. You might find it helpful when we get to responsive descriptions as well. Here's the phrase builder tool. The phrase builder tool is something we can use it to help us design and refine phrasing and lists of parameters for descriptions that need to be dynamic, such as dynamic state descriptions and contexts responses. The phrase builder is especially helpful when you are designing qualitative parameters, and for testing them within the surrounding phrase. The version in this demo is a very early prototype of the Phrase Builder Tool. It will be better by the time you see it. All demonstrate entering a phrase, factoring out the dynamic parts, and entering and adjusting the lists of parameters. When the phrase builder is better, you will be able to make changes to both the lists of parameters, and the surrounding phrasing on the fly. Right now, I can only adjust the parameters on the fly. Regardless of the version, that will be a large text area like this one, to directly enter your idea for any dynamic description you are working on. To speed things up, I'm going to copy in a description that we've designed for the dynamic summary, for the molarity simulation. This description needed several qualitative parameters to remain accurate and true. Solution volume, solution color, solute amount, solution name, or solute name, state of saturation, and level of concentration. Let's play with the seam for a minute to see how the state of the seam changes. We can adjust solution volume. There's no numbers here, so we're going to have to come up with qualitative parameters to describe that the beaker is half full, or full, or nearly empty, and all the places in between. We can change the solution to some other one. Now, we have potassium permanganate and it's saturated. Changing the solution, change the saturation. We can play with solute amount, can become not saturated sometimes. Let's go back to our phrase builder. To make parameters, or to make this phrase dynamic, we have to factor out the parts of the phrase that will be dynamic. We know we're going to have to change solution volume. Let's make a parameter for that. Parameter names cannot have spaces. The solution is not always red, so we're going to need a parameter for those solution color. It's not always some drink mix, sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less amountOfSolute. It's not always drink mix, sometimes it's some other solute. We're going to need soluteName. It's not always saturated. We're going to have stateOfSaturation, and has low concentration, levelOfConcetration. Now, to make these into fully functioning parameters, we need to add curly double braces around each parameter name. That's just how this phrase builder works. We'll make the names with no spaces, and then add double curly braces, and levelOfConcentration. There we go. When we scroll down, we see now we have new text boxes, where we can enter in lists of different parameters for describing solution volume, or solution color, or amount of solute, or the solution or solute name, and the state of saturation, and the level of concentration. Then we have our dynamic sentence really starting to take shape below. Let's add in some details that change. Solution volume we saw it when we played with the seam, that the beaker can be full, can be half-full, and it can be nearly empty, or almost empty. Can't be empty. I have some places in between, we'll have to come up with some more parameters for solution volume. There's lots of different colors for the solutions. We had red, we had blue, gold, purple. We'll copy in those ones for now. Amount of solute, it went to the top. Max amount, some solute, a little solute. Let's put in three for now. We'll obviously again need more. We have all the solute names, those are right on the screen, so we can just copy those in. Stretch that out a bit, so that they're all in one single line. State f saturation, that's simple. It is saturated, is saturated or is not saturated, and level of concentration. That's probably going to take some work, but let's just put in what I have for version 1. When we design the same. Now, let's look at our phrase. We've got lots of drop-down options. Currently, beaker is full, half-full, nearly empty, that sounds pretty good. Currently your beaker, let's say, it's half full of a red solution. It can also be a purple solution depending on the solute we have in there. Let's change the purple. Solution containing, we might need an oven there, max amount of drink mix solute, some drink mix, a little drink mix solute. That works but max amount does not work. Max amount might need to be max amount of solute name. Now we have max amount of that dynamically updated, that's nice. Then drink mix, and we've got all our other ones; potassium permanganate solute, copper sulfate solute. Actually, let's leave it at potassium permanganate because that's the purple one. Solution is saturated saturated. Saturated doesn't need to be in the parameter name, so let's take that out because we've got that in the surrounding phrase is not, there we go. That's better. Let's say it is not saturated and it won't have max concentration. It'll be maybe very concentrated, so and very concentrated. There's no verb there. The verb will need to go in the surrounding phrase or in the perimeter. Is concentrated. That's vague, we might want to change that. Is slightly concentrated, that's nice. Is barely concentrated. Is not concentrated. Is not concentrated, that's also vague. We might need to adjust those. Anyway, our dynamic phrase is shaping up. We can save this, let's call it summaryIntro01 as Version 1. Let's save it. If we keep working on it and making changes, for example, we can play with the same and see if we've missed anything. What happens if I have no solute? The solution is now clear and it's water. It's no longer a potassium permanganate solution, but it's a water solution. How would we do that in our phrase? Currently beaker is half-full of a purple. We don't have clear, let's add clear to our list of colors. We had to call that two. Now we have half-full of a clear solution containing a little. No, we have no solute so we're going to have no solute. We have to add that there. Max amount, no potassium permanganate solute, that sounds good. Solution is not saturated and is not concentrated so it's not so good. We might need to make some adjustments to our phrase, but you get the idea. You can play with the some, you can play with the phrase, you can play with your parameters and you can save versions. Let's copy in our final version of levels of concentration and save that as version 2. Maybe add because we know we're going to need more. Solution volume, half-full. How about almost full or nearly full? It can be nearly full like the bottom. We'll save that as version 2. Save. It's probably going to need more parameters and more work , but that's good. If we want to go back to our original version, we could just load that up by putting back in one. Then we can see that we've gone back to our other ones. To use this tool, open the phrase builder link provided in this week's readings or in the course resources. The tool includes instructions as well at the top. You can also just work in your design doc. You can see for us, when we were designing molarity, we went through at least three iterations of the solution volume parameters. When we get to responsive descriptions, we'll notice that the dynamic phrase builder can be helpful in creating responses as well. That in the design document, tables can be useful to layout examples. The responsive descriptions also contain dynamic text and sometimes the same qualitative scales used for parameters within the dynamic state descriptions, can be used in the responsive descriptions. We'll talk more about that in the next week's course materials. Now that we've seen dynamic text in action in the dynamic state descriptions and explored how to create and document dynamic text, we're ready for the design patterns associated with dynamic state descriptions and our next design tasks.
