While we have been working with Scenario-Based Learning Design (SBLD) for some time, it has taken us a while to explore all the different ways in which OpenLabyrinth can be helpful in this regard. It is time to provide better notes for others on just how useful OpenLabyrinth can be in SBLD and the powerful additional functionality that OpenLabyrinth’s Scenarios provide.

We will be posting a series of help pages that help you get more out of Scenarios.

We will be working with groups like WAVES to continue to improve how our Scenarios can be used.

Over the years, we have received occasional questions about how OpenLabyrinth can support virtual scenarios in languages other than English. Since OpenLabyrinth is used widely around the world, we are keen to explore a less anglocentric approach.

Now, as we have noted before (More languages in OpenLabyrinth cases), the node and page content in OpenLabyrinth is quite flexible. We have authors who have written cases in Greek, Russian, Slovak, French and even Klingon.

We have also had groups explore the use of right-to-left languages, with some success. For a quick look at how a case might look, check out this case on our demo server, Multi-lingual cases, which shows what can be done.

Ever since OpenLabyrinth v2.6.1, we have had some basic internationalization functions built into the code base. If you select French in your User Profile, you will see that the top level menus are rendered in French. But sadly, that is as far as it goes – no group has yet funded the code writing needed to take it further, with i18n tables and the like. So this is feasible – if anyone wants to take a crack at this, the source code for OpenLabyrinth is all up on GitHub.

Now it is also pretty easy to have the menu and button labels changed, using Google Translate. Here are some quick screen shots taken of the main authoring menu for https://demo.openlabyrinth.ca/renderLabyrinth/index/60 Multi-lingal cases:

Original (EN)

Francophone (FR)

Espagnol (ES)

Greek

Russian

Farsi (Persian)

Please let us know what you think in the comments below, or if you have strong suggestions, use the Contact page.

We are conducting another round of Turk Talk sessions on our OpenLabyrinth server.

Tonight, we are stress testing the Auto Text Expander macros in Google Chrome, so that our teachers can have much richer interactions with our students in their next Turk Talk session.

For more info on how to use Auto Text Expander with OpenLabyrinth, check out our how-to page.

Being able to quickly enter strings of text while facilitating a Turk Talk session makes the flow of the Scenario much smoother. This is important because the facilitator is trying to keep up with simultaneous conversations from up to 8 learners.