Forum Discussion
Learning Journal In Rise
UPDATE JUNE 2020:
Firstly, Articulate recently implemented a small update to Rise. As a result, all new exports from Rise will need to include the most recent version of LearningJournal.js which is found at the usual link.
Secondly, at any time Articulate could update their code and bring a breaking change to the Learning Journal. Over a year ago, I shared this functionality freely with the community and the code comes with no warranty or support either implied or expressed. If at any time you want or need to remove the Learning Journal from your modules, simple remove any STATEMENT-NOTE entries that refer to the Learning Journal.
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I built a cool Learning Journal feature for Rise that has been very well-received. I thought I'd share it in case anyone wanted to a. use it or b. improve on it.
The Learning Journal allows the learner to enter text responses to journal prompts throughout a Rise course. At the end of the course, the learner can print their learning journal of all their responses. The responses are saved to the browser so that they persist on future visits to the Rise course.
EDIT May 2019: At the request of a member of the forum, I created a HOW-TO video below that shows each step of the HOW-TO document in action.
Example Rise Course
http://amelangrise.s3.amazonaws.com/learningjournal/index.html
HOW-TO Document
https://github.com/mikeamelang/learning-journal/raw/master/Learning%20Journal%20HOW-TO.docx
HOW-TO Video
https://360.articulate.com/review/content/33873893-2ea1-46d9-9415-3efca951d74c/review
Learningjournal.js file (right-click and save)
http://raw.githubusercontent.com/mikeamelang/learning-journal/master/Learningjournal.js
Learningjournal.css file (right-click and save)
http://raw.githubusercontent.com/mikeamelang/learning-journal/master/Learningjournal.css
Project github site
https://github.com/mikeamelang/learning-journal
I would love any feedback and help to improve the functionality and code.
Mike Amelang
Hi Mitch, I just checked Mike's links in the original post and they are working for me.
Mike and Nicola, thank you!
I don't know if this is likely to be any help or not but I have just finished this guide: https://360.articulate.com/review/content/4bcd8edd-a2c8-4d4e-9780-bef74c2fccf5/review - The course is still under development but the Rise section is done as a first draft. Feel free to have a look and see if it helps. There's a process block on the learning journal. Note that I have slightly modified the journal script to allow for the action plan button to be hidden.
Thanks so much for sharing - I love it. Some very valuable information in there that's for sure. So after I read your response I stripped everything out and started with the base files again.... that worked fine; so I then added back in the formatting changes and that was fine too... go figure! I think that I may have broken it when I was trying to get the checkbox part working.... thanks so much for taking time out of your day to test it for me!
No problem Michelle :) Academics like to know the *detail*.
Often with these things it's something really small like missing a ; at the end of a line of CSS, or an incorrect property name or value.
Yes. Did all those steps correctly I think. Sorry for not giving much description before. It's hard as I don't know where I went wrong. Here's a few questions/considerations:
- Do the notes have to be case sensitive?
- When creating the notes does it matter if you do a soft return or hard return (When I do a hard return, the note shows the PLUS sign.
- Probably due to security, my work laptop wouldn't let me strictly download the JS file so I opened it instead and saved it in Notepad with the extension of JS. Will that be an issue?
- The CSS file saved itself as TXT. I figured that wouldn't work so I also opened it in Notepad and saved it as CSS instead.
- Does it matter what scorm type/version I output to (Scorm 2004 / 1.2)?
Let me know if any of those steps would have broken it. I did add the code to the HTML file exactly as indicated and re-zipped the package exactly as indicated though.
Hi Adam, I'll chip in here if that's OK - just don't take my words as gospel though as I didn't write it!
- Yes, the note labels need to be case sensitive - everything before the colons I think. I have also ensured any text I have to duplicate such as section names are the same in both the Section Intro and Journal Entry notes.
- I've done hard returns on all mine and they work fine so I'd go with that. I suspect it doesn't matter though.
- As long as it has saved it correctly as .js and not something like .js.txt or something it should work. Have you got 'filename extensions' checked in your file explorer view menu so you can see all the extensions?
- As above
- This shouldn't matter as the script doesn't touch the SCORM manifest or other configuration - however the files need to be in the correct folder, and this is different from a pure web export. Check the location of the files, and that the path you are providing in the HTML modifications matches.
Hope this helps!
Thank you thank you! I don't know what I was doing wrong before but this time I followed the steps within your Rise file on Review360 and started from scratch and it works!!! Hopefully that continues to be the case.
Hey Adam. How did you go? I’ve now got the same issue. It was working previously and I republished the module and now it’s not 😭
I can't seem to get this to work at all. I'm pretty sure I've followed your exact instructions however after I upload the new Zip file to the LMS, I'm still just getting Note boxes. Help!
Did you add the journal entries correctly? Did you alter the index file? Did you add the JavaScript and CSS files to the SCORM package?
Hi Louis
I would suggest that the way to do this would be one journal with a new section per module/chapter? And then have the download link available at the end? There's probably no harm in having the download button in each module as it would also end up slowly concatenating each section as it was completed?
Nic
I have just found this now and it's exactly what I'm looking for - thank you Mike! I am wondering if you can have multiple journals within a course. I have a Rise course with multiple modules and I would love to have a journal for each module. Is this possible?
Hi Mike
Love your solution here, it's excellent and absolutely the sort of thing Rise should be including by default by now...
Quick question - I found it very easy to set up the journal and customise it as needed, I just want to know - is it expected behaviour for the script to remove ALL notes statements whether they contain the specific text labels identified or not?
In other words, if I use the journal, I can't use notes statements elsewhere in the course?
Thanks
Nic
Hey Nic. Have you had any issues with republished modules? was working prior to Xmas but needed to do updates so republished and now it’s not. Have even rolled back the font changes and used the files linked above??? Am sure it’s something I’m missing but am stumped!
Hi Michelle,
Sorry I've been head down writing a guide on this for our academics this week...No, I've not seen any issues but I've not actually republished one from Rise. Let me check it out!
Nic
Nic I have been able to use note statements as well as the journal entries in the modules I am building no issues....
Hi MichelleThanks for the info. I just set this up today and I had a number of the note statements in my module summary section and none of them were visible with the journal script applied.
I hadn't made any changes to the code beyond changing fonts and colours, and re-labelling the buttons in the javascript file.
The ones I had in were just text-based and definitely didn't have any of the relevant text labels in them.
Weird!
Nic
Interesting, my journal is working but looks like Shakira's just above. Noticed my .css file was actually saved as a .txt.
(renaming as .css didn't work) So I saved-as .css using notepad++. replaced the files, rezipped the packaged an loaded to LMS. Now the nornal is not working and I see the Note containers with my journal code as entered in Rise.
Yes. Remove line 433 that reads
container.appendChild(button2);Regards,
Mike
Hi Mike
We have a lot of reflection checklists in the Rise 360 course... There's no right or wrong answer to them as everyone completing will have a different opinion (hence why they're reflection checklists). I would love to be able to collate the responses from within the module (similar to your journal entries) and then have a print button at the end. Given your experience, do you think that this would be possible with the right know how?
Michelle,
That is very achievable. In fact, a couple years ago, I extended the functionality of the Learning Journal to include both checkboxes and Madlibs. Here is the version that includes both those features. Simply search for the word "checkbox" to see all the code in the file related to the checkboxes. If the "Part" field is set to 1, the checkbox is clickable. But later in the course if the same ID is used but the "Part" field is set to 2, the checkbox is read-only, allowing you to display all the checkbox results at the end. Warning: this is from a stale, 2-year-old branch of the Learning Journal and therefore simply replacing your LearningJournal.js file with this file will fail. But it's a good start.
Mike
