Toolkit: Smart Sparrow

Smart Sparrow, as a company name, makes me smile. Theauthoring environment and the options available also make me smile. There aresome features I love that are easier to use in Smart Sparrow than in most othertools. Of course, I also note its limitations, as I do with every tool Ireview.

It’s all about personalized learning

The main thrust of Smart Sparrow is to allow you to createadaptive learning. If you’re not familiar with adaptive learning, it’s that which adapts itself to the learner’s level andprogress. For instance, you can build branching in lessons so that whenlearners have no problem showing expertise in the subject matter, they can skiprepetitive materials or exercises. On the other hand, those who are newer tothe subject will get more opportunities to learn. Adaptive learning is trulypersonalized learning. It’s the kind I like to build, and to teach others tobuild too.

The authoring environment

When creating or editing a lesson in Smart Sparrow, you’llfind several options to meet your instructional design goals.

You insert new elements by choosing them from a toolbar, asyou see in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The new toolbar 

 

First steps

Initially, I insert a layer. Layers act like Master Slidesin PowerPoint and other tools.

The Layer menu, seen in Figure 2, lets you determine thescreen size, background frame, and fill colors. One very interesting featurenot common to other tools is that you can change the screen size on any screen,meaning your screen size can change mid-lesson.

Figure 2: Layer options 

In each case, you can choose a single color from a smallpalette or you can use a hex code to enter any color. See Figures 3 and 4.

Figure 3: Screen styleoptions  

Figure 4: Screen size options 

 Learners don’t see the layer directly. However, anything youplace on a layer will be seen in all the screens that are indented below it. Onthe layer, I’ll place those elements I wish to see in all the indented screens(see Figure 5).Of course, I may want a background image, but I’m not limited: Anything on theInsert and Components menus, illustrated in Figures 6and 7, can be placed on the layer.

Figure 5: Screens organization 

Figure 6: The Insert menu

Figure 7: TheComponents menu 

Creating your lesson

You can decide how to organize your screens before populatingthem, or you can add each screen as needed. On the left side of the SmartSparrow screen, you’ll see an area like that in Figure 5, where you’ll see anyexisting screens and where you can add others. You can close this at any time if you need more room for yourstage area.

In Figure 5 (above), you can see that I’ve created a masterslide layer and placed three screens below it called Welcome, Introduction, and Scenario1. The Scenario 1 screen has two sub-screens, and the second sub-screen has four sub-screensof its own. Two question pools follow.

See Figure 1 again. This is where I chose to insert the layer,the screens, and the sub-screens. In addition, you’ll see some preset templatescreens.

 

Quizzing and trap states

You can set up a series of question slides in a pool, whichis what I did twice, as seen earlier in Figure 5.

You can set up as many different question pools as you like.In each case, you then randomly choose the number of questions to ask from thatpool. This is a little different from other tools, in which you create anynumber of pools, then select questions from one or more pools to create a quiz.In Smart Sparrow, you create a question pool, then select how many randomquestions to choose from that pool. You can’t mix questions from differentpools in one quiz.

In Figure 6 (above), you can see the various question typesavailable on the Insert menu, along with text, image, video, audio players, andpop-ups. Also see the next section and Figure 7 (above) for more options. Notethat you cannot upload audio and video to Smart Sparrow for inclusion in yourlessons. Audio and video must be hosted elsewhere, and you then link to theaudio and video locations in Smart Sparrow’s audio and video players.

Components

Besides the Insert options, a separate Components menu (Figure 7)shows several other choices currently in beta, labeled “Advanced Inputs,” thatyou can also insert. To their right are options for starting with a blank component;going to a library of components you can download and use; and a link todownload and use Smart Sparrow’s API to create your own components.

Adaptivity: Powerful and easy

Now we come to the point where wecan see just how much Smart Sparrow shines. Whenever you place an interactionin your lesson, you will see an Adaptivity panel (Figure 8)where you can define different combinations of conditions regarding learner interactions,and in response to each combination, any number of actions for the lesson toperform.

Figure 8: Setting up trapstates in the Adaptivity panel

Whenever students reach a question screen, they are in whatis called the initial state. If theyanswer the question correctly, they enter a correctstate, and if they get it wrong, they enter an error state. Error states also include a default error state, which is reached when the learner gets ananswer wrong but hasn’t matched any of the other error states. Each of thesestates is a part of what Smart Sparrow calls trap states, because they “trap” the learner’s interaction, atwhich point you can respond the way you wish. You can also combine states formore complex answer analysis.

Trap states are used with any kind of interaction, even onethat is not part of a question. For instance, if you are showing the learner avideo and the learner tries to advance to the next screen before the video isover, you can display a message telling the learner to finish watching thevideo.

Look at Figure 9for a good example. In this case, the learner needs to choose “Blood Type A” asthe correct answer, in which case the condition in the correct state will bematched (there is no way to change the default “correct state” label,unfortunately, but you can create additional correct states with other labels).

Figure 9: Adaptivitypanel 

What happens if the learner chooses “Blood Type O”? Figure 10,which shows the rules for the Blood Type O trap state, shows that the lessonwill provide feedback and then go to the screen called Elimination Round 1. It will also disable the Blood Type O choiceso the learner won’t choose it again.

Figure 10: Conditionsand actions 

When creating trap state rules, you can add as manyconditions and as many actions as you like. You can choose whether theaction(s) will take place if just one of the conditions is true or whether theymust all be true. In this example, there is only one condition, so it doesn’tmatter.

Conditions include the ability to look back and includeinformation automatically tracked in Smart Sparrow, such as if the learneranswered the question two screens back correctly. Choose from multiple trackedvariables in the current screen or any screen, as you see in Figure 11. InFigure 12, you can see the five different condition areas you can check, in anycombination. Data types are supported, so you can check against a number, Boolean,string, array, enum, math expression, or point array.

Figure 11: Choosefrom multiple tracked variables in the current screen or any screen 

Figure 12: Conditionsyou can check 

If the condition in a trap is met, you can set one or moreactions to occur, as seen in Figure 13.The action Give some feedback is notlimited to just text. In fact, you can include any combination of the choicesyou see in Figure 14.

Figure13: Actions toperform 

Figure 14: Feedback options 

Note an action in Figure 13: Change an object on the screen. Through that action, you can setmany of the elements listed in Figure 11,except that besides setting stage objects or variables only on the currentscreen or a different screen, you can also access external scripts.

As it is possible, as a result of an interaction, for you tosend the learner to a different screen rather than the immediate next screen,it’s helpful to have a view of how the branches are set up in the lesson. In Figure 15,the lesson shows learners where they are, how each screen can branch, and whichscreens are informational versus questions.

Figure15: TheLearner’s Navigation panel 

Getting under the hood

I’ve already mentioned that you can create your owncomponents in Smart Sparrow. You also can extend its abilities in other ways. Iwill need to get a little technical here.

• You can insert an iFrame onto any screen,allowing you to show any hosted content. This is often done to show a softwaresimulation, for example, created in a different tool. (You can’t use SmartSparrow to create software simulations.) You can see an example here.
• The Smart Sparrow Control API (which they call “CAPI”)shows authors all the behind-the-scenes properties of the screen in view,including information for widgets and simulations. You can use this to create morespecific trap state conditions according to learners’ interactions withembedded simulations or other on-screen content.
• You can point to your own CSS in many areas ofSmart Sparrow to ensure that lessons you build match the rest of your websiteand materials.
• Variables are easy to create and use. Forinstance, in Figure 16, I’ve set up three variables: a, b, and random. Notice the use of the function rndm, which generates a random number.

Figure 16: Creating variables

• Speaking of functions, there are many mathfunctions and math constant values available to you. You’d be hard pressed tofind one you need that isn’t in Smart Sparrow.
• In addition, you can create and use matrices andvectors and act on them, an ability that gives you a lot more power than almostany other authoring tool on the market. They are analogous to arrays inprogramming languages. However, matrices and vectors hold only number values.Smart Sparrow does make some limited use of arrays, as noted earlier.

The Lesson menu

The Lesson menu, seen in Figure 17,has several options that pertain to the lesson as a whole, from seeing whichassets are in use in the lesson to using variables and more.

Figure 17: The Lessonmenu 

Software as a Service

Smart Sparrow is cloud-based.

As is true of most of the tools introduced in the last fewyears, Smart Sparrow is a web-based tool, also known as SaaS (Software as aService). This means that you don’t have to install anything on your computerand that you can author from anywhere you have an Internet connection.

In addition, Smart Sparrow provides the delivery environmentas well, meaning that learners can take the courses you build directly on theSmart Sparrow site.

Distributing your lessons

As is true of several of the new SaaS tools that areoffering complete solutions, this means that you don’t need a learningmanagement system (LMS) to deliver the courses you build in Smart Sparrow. Onthe other hand, if you already have an LMS in place and you want to use SmartSparrow along with other tools to deliver your eLearning, you can integrateSmart Sparrow lessons with your LMS using the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI)option. You cannot download lessons and upload them directly to your LMS. Thisis true of many online tools, so the LTI option was created by the IMS GlobalLearning Consortium.

Analytics

Smart Sparrow includes detailed analytics to provide learnerdata for instructors and instructional designers. Below, in Figures 18 to 21, youcan see some examples.

Figure 18: A lesson summary report 

Figure 19: A detailed visual representation of studentresponses 

Figure 20: A question report 

Figure 21: A student results report 

Pricing

Unlike some SaaS products, Smart Sparrow shows its pricingup front. The authoring tool itself is free to use, and it’s free to distributeyour lessons to up to five students, so you can try out Smart Sparrow with notime limits. If you upgrade, the price is $39/month for up to 30 students,$119/month for up to 100 students, and $199/month for up to 200 students. Ifyou need more students to sign up for the lessons you create in Smart Sparrow,you can contact them for institution pricing.

I found Smart Sparrow an intriguing tool,different from most. What do you think? Write in the comments below. To findout more, go to SmartSparrow.com.