I just wanted to let you know that we have a course delivery application
that we wrote about 4 years ago in Flash using XML to control the
delivery of material.
It uses a few XML files to control the flow.
The first is a company file that controls skinning for different
customers (logos, colours, etc.). It also controls administrative
behaviour that is common to all courses for that company (logon
required, format of usernames for validation, where to find the list of
valid users-if required, administrator's e-mail for sending out test
results, etc.)
Each course is controlled by a chapter file that lists each chapter and
tells the system where to find the chapter assets. This helps partition
the course assets into manageable chunks. Our courses tend to be long
with 2 to 5 chapters each with 30-80 slides(pages). Chapters may be
created in parallel so it also helps keep the integrators from stepping
on each other's toes.
The main file (pages file) controls the delivery of content. Each slide
(page) has a basic structure that is the same for all types of pages.
Pages are identified as content, test - formative(immediate feedback) or
summative (exam), control pages(dummy pages that signal something like
"chapter end").
Simple pages look a bit like your proposed structure (except for
duration - we get that from the sound file).
For more interesting interaction, a page can call up a template which is
run as a sub-function and accesses its own custom datastructure which is
stored as a sub-node under the main page node. This is used to implement
tests (multiple choice, matching, custom flash interactions, etc.) or
slides with timed appearance of bullets and images. This allows us to
make courses that look like custom timeline animations just by putting
information in XML that says "at 10 seconds into the narration show this
picture(jpg or swf), and at 15 seconds display this text in 14 point
Arial, green and bold and at 25 second replace the image with this one".
The test templates can communicate their final test results back to the
main flow which builds up a history that can be sent to the
administrator at the end of the test. This returning XML structure
includes the grade and the text that the test generated which typically
describes what happened in a wrong answer. The main flow has no idea
about the information, its only job is to save it and produce a final
e-mail. The e-mail is sent through our server so that the person only
needs HTTP access through their company firewall and does not even need
e-mail on their PC - greatly simplifies administration; the student can
work from work or home without .having to do any setup.
We use XML internally to pass information around between objects. XML is
easy to parse and whole sub-nodes can be easily extracted and sent to
another object without knowing what is in it.
This tends to make each object much simpler and less dependent on its
friends.
It has been used for all sorts of courses in French and English. We are
selling an Explosives Technician's pre-course that we did for the RCMP.
It is also used by Canadian Forces to train IEDD specialists. We have
done a few technical courses in the petrochemical area including Pumps,
Steam Traps, Work Permits and a ISO-14001 Awareness course. We have done
a course on Public Participation for municipal managers and elected
officials. It is very flexible in a wide variety of application areas.
It has proven to be extremely robust in the field running over LAN, off
of CD-ROM and over the Internet through an LMS. It can be run as a SCORM
compliant content. I am not a big fan of SCORM but ???
We are thinking about making it open source, if there is some interest.
We have also done another application involving a medium sized database
stored in XML delivered on standalone CD-ROM which allowed first
responders to quickly find information and photos about the Personal
Protective Equipment used by all first responders in the city. (from gas
masks to sun-screen).
We have never had any problems with XML with any recent version of Flash
so I think that you will be OK.
Ron
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