Reimagining the slideshow: using reveal.js to create Choose Your Own Adventure library tutorials
The WI+RE (Writing Instruction and Research Education) team at UCLA was tasked with creating innovative online instructional modules to meet undergraduate student needs in research technology skills, information literacy, writing skills and research planning. Looking for a framework that enables students at a range of skill and knowledge departure points to find the modules useful, we turned to a tool called reveal.js. The novel slideshow structuring allows users to select paths through the content, moving downward to get additional information about a topic or skipping forward to bypass entry-level steps. This afforded agency respects users time, but is still comprehensive. For example, in Introduction to Zotero, we offer users text installation instructions, in-depth videos if they need them and the ability to bypass the whole section if need be. The slides have been created collaboratively in Github using simple html for formatting. By conference time, we will have conducted user testing and deployed publicly a number of these projects, and will have data on their efficacy.
