Hints and Tips
Here are a few hints and tips on how you can get more out of building an activity in Logotron Visual Fractions.
Logotron Visual Fractions has a large range of ready-made example files. You can work with these examples just as they or you can edit them for your own needs. If you are not sure how an object on a page has been linked all you need to do is highlight the object you wish to investigate in Explore mode (click on the item once to make the object active), then press the Control key on your keyboard.
If you want your text box to look like it is written on a post it ™ note, click on the Post it option in the Text object choices box.
Sometimes you might like to create an activity screen which shows more information in the Teachers Explore screen than in Pupil Run Mode.
Here the Explore mode shows how a puzzle can be worked out using pie fractions. To make any object invisible in the Pupil Run mode click on the Hidden option in the object choices box.
Cross Pattern Activity
Use the drawing tools to make simple, fill the shape puzzles. First decide the pattern you will make and use the Family Fractions to make it.
Logotron Visual Fractions has many shapes suitable for a tiling pattern (plus, if you have access to Logotron's Imagine Logo or Revelation Natural Art, you can always make your own. Click here to find out how).
Use the pen tool to draw around the shape. All you need then, to make the puzzle complete, is to move the tile pieces away from the outline.
A simple necklace shape and the circle family was used to make this simple necklace activity.
As default, all objects can be dragged on screen in both Explore and Run mode. Sometimes however, it might make more sense for some objects to be fixed in place.
This numberline wall for example was made from ten box fractions placed in a pattern (one under another).
To make sure an object cannot be moved in Run Mode, deselect the ‘drag’ option in the box fraction choices box.
In this activity the Ideas boxes at the side have been fixed so that they cannot be altered in Run mode.
This was done by choosing the ‘locked’ option in the box fraction choices options.
Some activity screens need whole numbers rather than fractions.
Add a new fraction to the screen and make sure that ‘wholes’ is chosen but ‘fraction’ is not chosen (to avoid mixed fractions) in the fractions choices menu.
Ratio can often be the hardest fraction idea to grasp. To help with this, the Logotron Visual Fractions Ratio can be shown both in figures or in words (up to a limit of twenty).
Just select the ‘in words’ option in the ratio choices.
In sequence mode your selection of activity screens are show as small thumbnails. This can sometimes help you find an activity screen you want to use more quickly. From sequence mode you can access any of these screens directly – just double click on the thumbnail.
If you want to create an activity screen very similar to one you have already, the best way to do this is to copy the activity whilst it is open in a sequence.
Use the ‘Copy selected activity’ tool to make a copy of the screen you want to use. You’ll need to rename the activity first or changes to one screen will appear in ‘both’ copies. |
