SoftChalk Presentation

1. SoftChalk 4
Presented by Scott Howell, Kim Jones, Michele Laaksonen, and Sharon
Salyer

2. SoftChalk4 is an easy to use,
downloadable program for your
personal computer that:
● looks and acts just like a Word
document
● transforms the document into a
polished, interactive lesson.
Introduction

3. Softchalk4 provides:
● an active learning environment
that connects you with your
students through various
interactive learning activities and
tools
● a community learning experience
through in-text annotations that
make the instructor part of the
conversation
● user-friendly and intuitive
navigation between pages
What teachers say
Helping Students

4. Instructors can:
● Type lessons into the SoftChalk4
window or copy and paste from
Word files.
● Easily add images, hyperlinks,
videos, audio files, and tools.
● Upload lessons to Blackboard.
● A preview tab lets you toggle
between screens to watch the
progression of your lesson-
design process.
Teachers Love SoftChalk
Helping Instructors
S

5. Instructors have the capability to create new lessons or copy and paste
lessons from word processing programs.
● Creating and saving a new lesson in SoftChalk
o Select “File/New” from the drop-down menus
o Type your lesson content, using the toolbar under the top menu to
customize fonts, add bullet points, align text, insert images, etc.
o Click “File/Save As” to save the lesson to your local computer as an
.html file.
● Previewing a lesson in SoftChalk
o While working on a new lesson, click CTRL+P to preview your work
or click the preview icon on the toolbar.
How to Use SoftChalk4

6. ● Opening a lesson in SoftChalk
o Select “File/Open” from the
drop-down menus
o Browse to your local lesson
and double-click on it to
open
● Previewing a lesson in SoftChalk
o While working on a new
lesson, click CTRL+P to
preview your work or click
the preview icon on the
toolbar.
How to Use SoftChalk4

7. In addition to creating lessons, instructors have the capability to create
activities such as quizzes, crosswords puzzles, etc. as online content.
● Creating a new quiz
o Select “Insert/QuizPopper” and decide on the quiz type (true/false,
multiple choice, etc.)
o Type your questions into the quiz.
● Removing or modifying a quiz
o Right click on a QuizPopper and select “Remove QuizPopper” to
take it out of your lesson.
o You can also modify the quiz by right-clicking and choosing “Modify
QuizPopper” to make changes.
● Saving a quiz
o Right click on a QuizPopper and select “Save to Library”
How to Use SoftChalk - Adding Activities to
Lessons

8. SoftChalk has a tremendous amount of information in
the help guide and online
● Accessing the Help Guide PDF
o Select “Help/Help Topics/User Guide” and search for the desired
help topic.
● Accessing videos, sample lessons, etc.
o Select “Help Help Topics/Quick Tour Videos, etc. and you will be
guided to the appropriate support tools (Internet connection
required)
o Right click on a QuizPopper and select “Save to Library”
How to use SoftChalk - Getting Help

9. SoftChalk Meets All of the
Following Best Practices

10. Utilize students’ preferred method of reading
● “The Internet has created a new reading style. Today we are changing
from a concentrated, sustained, and linear reading style into a more…
fragmented, intuitive, and associative… reading style.” (Swart, 2011, p.
27).
Best Practices # 1

11. Select tools that facilitate:
1. “organization of the teaching and studying,”
2. “learning and tutoring processes,” and
3. “achievement of learning, the development of learning skills” (Silius
& Tervakari, 2003 qtd in Celik, 2012).
Best Practices # 2

12. Select tools that meet the following competencies:
1. Technical - allowing content previewing, screenshots, links,
encoding and embedding, and mobile capacity
2. Media - supporting multiple media extensions and allowing
interactive texts, audio, and video
3. Assessment - Allowing feedback, showing quiz answers, importing
questions from external pools, uploading graphics to questions
Best Practices # 3

13. • Develop lessons where students are “active discoverers and constructors
of their own knowledge” (Abbott, 2014)
• Construct online lessons geared to take only 15 minutes (compared to 45-
minute traditional classroom lessons) (SoftChalk Create,” n.d.)
Best Practices # 4

14. • Construct multimedia lessons because “The more [forms of multimedia in
a given lesson] the better” (“Softchalk Create,” n.d.)
– Multimedia lessons should include transcriptions of videos,
descriptions of images/text, and use HTML over Microsoft Office for
greater device/browser compatibility (“Best practices for making online
content,” n.d.)
• Serve as a facilitator (i.e., facilitators “need not be present for or
participate in every structured learning activity”) (Barr & Tagg, 1995 qtd. in
Abbott, 2014)
(continued)

15. Pros/Cons of SoftChalk
LessonBuilder is used to create interactive
lessons.
LessonBuilder is compatible with Mac and
PC.
LessonBuilder supports various media
formats (audio, video, flash, Shockwave,
and web movies).

16. Pros and Cons
QuizPopper feature can be utilized to
determine student comprehension on
each page.
SoftChalk offers online training
options, such as webinars and online
workshops.
SoftChalk has both a user guide for
download and email online support.
Pros:

17. Pros and Cons
Importing PowerPoint slides with animation into
LessonBuilder lose background formatting and
animation.
Imported text and graphics cannot be edited.
No headers, footers, or sidebars are available in
LessonBuilder.
Customized lessons require a more difficult html
program, StyleBuilder.
Cons:

18. References
References
Abbott, J. (2014). Best practices: Using popular media for active learning: Engaging students outside of the classroom. HETS
Online Journal, 139-153.
Amy Burns Explains How She Uses SoftChalk with Students. AEA K-12 Online. Retrieved from
http://www.aeak12online.org/2013/04/amy-burns-explains-how-she-uses.html
A SoftChalk Love Story. YouTube.com. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie2CRf9Vg08
Baker, A and Sobilo, L. (2008). Reviewing SoftChalk – An Instructional Aid. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning for
Christians in Higher Education, Vol. 3 no. 1
Best practices for making the content you put online accessible to all
students. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.tstc.edu/harlingenod/accessibilitybestpractices
Celik, S. (2012). Development of usability criteria for e-learning content development software.
Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 13, 336-345.

19. References (continued)
References (cont.)
SoftChalk Create. (2014). Retrieved from http://softchalk.com/products/softchalk
SoftChalk create best practices. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://learn.utsa.edu/SoftChalk/Soft%20Chalk%20Create%20Best%20Practicespdf.pdf
SoftChalk Create. YouTube.com. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSU-g8bVEdY
Swart, D. (2011). The new read. Exploration of new genres in literature. Self-published master’s thesis, Utrecht Graduate School
of Visual Art and Design, The Netherlands.