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>> Hello, this is Cathy [assumed spelling] and I want
to talk a little bit today about containers.
We all have containers of things in our home
and this is showing you a spice rack
and containers are interesting because they are small things
that typically have a label on them and have something inside.
So, I can say to somebody, hey go to the cabinet
and get this spice container for nutmeg
and there will be nutmeg inside.
Go get the container that has mustard seeds
and inside I will see mustard seed.
That may sound pretty obvious to you, but you need to know
that inside of Angel there are also containers that have names
and they are used to store something.
They go by some technical terms,
typically environmental variables or tokens,
but I am going to try to avoid those words today
and just focus more on the fact that it is a container
with a name on it and there is something inside
of that container.
Now, some of you may be saying already I could care less
about this, but I think it is pretty interesting stuff,
so please keep listening if you would.
One thing in Angel, I like to provide some personalized
content for my students.
I really don't like to send out e-mail
to my students saying Dear Student,
I would rather it actually have their names instead
of the words student.
So, in this example, I am going to be going into some content
as a teacher and making some things
and then showing you what it looks
like from a student's perspective.
And the student I am going to be using is a fake one
that I have set up, Mickey Mouse, so as we go through this
if you see Mickey this and Mickey that,
well it is just me playing with my little fake student.
So, inside of Angel we have information in containers.
For example when a student logs in to Angel,
their first name is actually stored in a container.
Their last name is in the container, their full name is
in the container, your name as the teacher is in the container,
your full course name is even stored
for you inside a labeled container and we can get
to that information and that is what makes it interesting.
So, let us think about an announcement for your class.
Typically, an announcement might look like the one
in the upper left corner where you say hey everyone remember
such and such, but if I am Mickey, isn't the one
in the bottom right a little more personal,
hey Mickey, remember to study.
Just having the name
of the student there I think makes us a little bit more
personalized and maybe the student a little bit more apt
to actually go look at the announcement.
So, how did I do that?
Well, I used one of the built-in containers in Angel.
The name of that container is kind of awkward, I will admit.
It is dollar sign first underscore name dollar sign
and all of that is important.
So, to create that announcement all I typed was,
"hey" dollar sign first name dollar sign with the underscore
and everything and then Angel will automatically put the
contents of that container on the screen.
So, when Mickey logs in, it will show Mickey.
When Suzie logs in, it will say Suzie
and when Ralph logs in, it will say Ralph.
So, it will do it for me and that is pretty cool.
Now, as you use these and you type
in these dollar sign first underscore name dollar sign,
first and name can be capitalized or not, all caps,
all lower case doesn't matter, but it does have
to be spelled correctly,
so first name will not work, having done that.
So, there are some other useful containers inside
of Angel that come built-in.
One of course we have just seen is first name,
another one that is useful is last name.
Username is the full name of the user, so first and last.
User e-mail is their personal e-mail like at Yahoo or Hotmail.
Section, colon instructor-- that one looks different,
is your name as the teacher, last and then first.
So, mine is Brookes [assumed spelling] comma Cathy.
Section title is the name of your course
that Angel knows it as,
so it could be W10 English Composition 1 Section 2,
kind of a long name, but that is what is stored in that.
So, where can you use these containers,
where could you use first name with the dollar signs around it.
Well, you can use those anywhere you find an HTML editor
in Angel.
An HTML editor is the editor where you type things
and you can make words bold and underlined and things like that,
so here are some examples.
You can do this in content items.
So, when you create a page in Angel, you can use this
in drop boxes and forums or even in assessments and this one
at the top happens to be an assessment that I have used
in a math question, I have used the container first name.
You can also use these containers in communications
like announcements and e-mail and even calendars.
This happens to be at the bottom, a calendar entry
where I have used first name.
So again, the top one happens to be a quiz question.
The bottom one happens to be a calendar event.
So, let us see what those look like when Mickey logs in.
So, when Mickey takes the quiz, he gets his name in the test.
And when Mickey sees an announcement in the calendar,
he gets his name in there
and that is probably a little more attention grabbing I
like to think.
Now, for me personally, I never have enough time
to do anything I want to do anymore,
so anytime I can save some time I like it.
And in Angel we are doing a little upfront work.
I have saved myself a scud of time.
Let me give you an example.
I teach a very short three-week class in Angel
and there are weekly due dates.
So, every time I offer the class again, I have to go
through all my content items and make sure the dates are correct.
So, I have got dates in drop boxes, in forums,
in instructions, in announcements.
I have dates everywhere, so I have to go through
and change them all and you know what happens.
I once miss one and I always hear about it
and I get very frustrated by that.
So, instead, what I did, I used Angel and instead of using one
of the built-in containers, I made my own.
You can make your own custom containers in a course
and then use them in a course.
If you want them in more than one course,
you need to make them in the second or third course as well.
So, what I did, I made up my own custom container
and I named it end of first week and inside
of there I put the due dates for that first week's assignments.
I have another variable for end, second week and the due dates
for that, and then end third week and the due dates for that.
So, that wasn't too bad to do.
Then, what I did in my class, when I had a page
of instructions, I said, oh hey, it is due, Thursday
and first week, I just use my own custom variable.
When I set up a drop box, I made sure to include the due date
for that as one of the subtitles.
When I sent out e-mail, I made sure they knew when it was due
and you might also notice I used the built-in variable
for first name to customize that e-mail.
And even when I had an announcement,
I made sure to say, oh it is due, end first week.
That is really cool.
But, the beauty of this really is when I have
to offer this class again and all the dates have changed,
I am going to in and just change the content to that variable
from perhaps February to April 7th and poof!
I am done.
All the dates throughout all the content items
and everything else that had
to end the first week now has the new dates showing.
So, I just saved myself a ton of work and a ton of digging
around trying to find where all the dates were.
How do you create your own containers,
well certainly kind of easy.
Of course, plan ahead on this.
Think about what you want to name your container
because the name is what is going
to help you realize what it holds.
If I have a container of mustard seeds
and it is called mustard seed, I am good.
If I have a container of mustard seed
and it is called yellow stuff; that is not going
to help me, so name things well.
The way you name the container is critical.
It can be upper or lower case, that does not matter,
but you must have a dollar sign at the beginning
and a dollar sign at the end, no spaces are allowed.
So, to do this it is pretty easy.
You go to the Manage tab,
you click on Environmental Variables, click on Add,
you give your variable a name, you put something
in it, and you save it.
So, this is the screen where you create an environmental
variable, you give it a name, you put something
in it, and then you save it.
Then, you can then use that environmental variable
or container by the name you gave it throughout your content
wherever you have an HTML editor.
So, I would suggest also you start small.
You might want to create your own container to hold the name
of your course like English Composition 101.
That is not held in Angel, so if you need
that often you could set that up
and perhaps name the variable course name
with dollar signs around it.
You can make containers to hold comments
and then use those comments throughout things.
So, comment one, again dollar signs
around it might be nice work, first name.
I can see you got a lot and lot of it and on and on.
You can have comment two, comment three, comment four.
And when you need to use those, just use the name
of that container and the contents
of that container will then show.
So, I hope you are thinking,
this is pretty cool because it is.
Thanks for listening.