MatchWare and DiDA

MatchWare’s DiDA Software Suite is adapted to the requirements of the DiDA qualification. OpenMind, Mediator and ScreenCorder solve the issues candidates encounter in this challenging exam. The MatchWare Suite allows students to focus directly on the content of the qualification, increasing chances of success and providing an inclusive solution for students of all levels.

Creating E-Porfolios with OpenMind 2 Business

All units of DiDA require students to plan and create an e-portfolio, combining the specific tasks outlined in the qualification and export them to an appropriate format. Students must ensure that the contents of their e-portfolio can be read by software in the Moderator’s toolkit. MatchWare’s OpenMind Viewer is now part of this toolkit.

OpenMind 2 Business, MatchWare’s Mind Mapping software, is the perfect tool for all three of these tasks.

With OpenMind 2 Business you can:

Plan the Tasks

• Brainstorm and organise the grouping of tasks 
• Add task and time information to each branch
• View the planned project within the integrated Gantt view or as a timeline

Structure the E-portfolio

• Attach relevant files to branches (sounds, pictures, text, Flash®)
• Create hyperlinks to ANY file format: e.g. PDF, HTML, SWF, PPT, TXT, PNG etc.

Export

• Export the project to HTML to create a complete and fully interactive e-portfolio. 

Unit 2: Using Mediator for D-102 and D-202

In the Edexcel 2006 summative brief for Unit 2, students are required to perform specific tasks utilising a multimedia authoring tool.

MatchWare’s Mediator 8 Pro is an extremely powerful yet inclusive tool for creating interactive CD-ROM and Flash® projects. Mediator’s simple three step process of designing pages, adding interactivity and exporting requires no programming skills and produces industry standard results.

Mediator provides an empowering environment for students wishing to satisfy each of the three tasks required in D201 and D202 of DiDA.

To complete the game, the user must Crack the Code! Mediator’s easy-to-use page oriented design can be used to create the splash screen and interactive map.

In addition, with Mediator 8 Pro, you can complete:

A Movie:

• Students can visually drag and drop multimedia elements such as images, sounds, text and animations onto their design page to create a professional looking movie and interactive questionnaire.

A Video

• Students can integrate their Talking Heads video on their design page and include navigation bars, hotspots, hyperlinks, animations, sounds as well as an interactive questionnaire.

A Quiz:

• The Final Challenge component is perhaps the most demanding aspect of unit 2. Mediator’s straightforward if-then-else feature requires no programming, allowing the student to concentrate on the content of their quiz.

The set property feature in Mediator allows the students to intuitively define a specific action for each component of their project, bringing the user a step closer to cracking the code!
All of Mediator 8 Pro’s functionalities can be incorporated in student projects as the Mediator Viewer is part of the Moderators’ Toolkit.

Reviewing Projects with ScreenCorder 5:

Students are required to review their project work at all levels of DiDA assessment. This review material can be supplied in three formats: Video clips, Audio clips and Presentations.

MatchWare’s ScreenCorder 5 is a tool for recording on-screen activity and is particularly useful in helping students to review what they have done.

• Make video recordings of on-screen actions 
• Enhance recordings with audio accounts, text and images
• Combine several recordings into one file
• Export these presentations to Flash, AVI & WMV

It is a contemporary and unique way for the student to incorporate self-evaluations of their project work for DiDA. Exported files can be embedded in OpenMind or Mediator to become part of the e-portfolio.