Hear and Click Lesson Setup

The hear and click setup executes in a data panel on the right side of the ACORNS window application frame. Use this panel to set up your lesson. On the top of the panel, there is a secondary toolbar. Click here for a detailed description.

Step 1: Load or Record Audio

Before you can execute your lesson, you need to either load or record a story. To do this you use the Annotation Click Panel. Click Here for instructions.

Step 2: Annotate Portions of the Sound Panel with Pictures

To accomplish this, first select a portion of the sound wave using the Annotation Click Panel instructions (see Step 1). Then insert your image. One way to execute the insert image command is to click on the edit menu and then select the image option from the insert submenu. An easier way is to simply click on the ACORNS application toolbar. A third way is to drag and drop; when you have an operating system folder open, select a picture; next drag to the ACORNS application frame and release the mouse. The pictures will attach to the sound wave and you will see it displayed below. If you choose to insert using the first two of these approaches, a file chooser dialog will appear, which is similar to chooser menus that other application programs use. Browse to the folder containing the pictures, and then click on the desired picture. Note that if the folder contains lots of pictures; it sometimes takes a while for the list of files to display. After adding a picture to a lesson, you can annotate different places in the sound wave using the procedure just described.

Remove a picture

Should you want to remove a picture from the lesson, first click within the one that you want to delete. Then click on the edit menu, then click on remove, and then on image. The picture selected will then be deleted from the lesson. An even easier way is to click on the garbage can icon (lower right) after clicking within the picture that you want to delete.

Recovering from Errors

ACORNS has an undo option available should you make inadvertant changes to your lesson. Simply click the undo button on the ACORNS application toolbar. If you change your mind after an undo, you can click the redo button to restore the change.

Secondary toolbar options

At the top of the setup panel, there is a secondary toolbar as shown in the picture below. This toolbar contains a series of grapic components and we will describe the purpose of each.
When you click the help button, this page displays. The title you gave to this lesson when it was created appears to the right of the help button
All ACORNS lessons can have multiple layers; each Hear and Click lesson layer has an entirely separate story and pictures. This feature can be useful to create lessons with multiple dialects. By switching between layers, the student can learn each dialects using the same lesson. This option can also be used to assign more difficult lessons to the higher layers. The slider on the control bar enables you to set up a lesson with multiple layers. Simply click on the slider to move to the desired layer. The layer numbers are numbered as shown on the picture to the left.
This control enables you to insert a background picture to the lesson. This gives you more control as to how the lesson looks when it executes.
The rotate button allows you to rotate the selected picture in ninety degree increments. This feature accommodates pictures taken with the camera rotated. Click to select the picture, and then click the rotate button.
These controls allow you to control background and text colors that are used when the lesson executes. If you click either of the two left buttons, you will see a color palette display; simply click the color you want and then click OK. The button with the capital A is for the text color and the one with the three boxes and hand is for the background color.
The link button allows you to connect this lesson with another lesson in the file. Clicking on this button causes a dialog window to appear. Enter the name of the lesson you want to link to. The name field is one of the header fields that you fill in when you create a lesson. (You can modify it later if you didn't.) It shows in the lesson display area on the left of the ACORNS application frame. After you click OK to the link dialog, the name of the linked lesson will show in blue on the secondary toolbar.