This article reprinted from: Nickle, T. C. and R. Hodson Wink is free software which allows easy creation of animated computer tutorials.

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This article reprinted from:

Nickle, T. C. and R. Hodson. 2008. Wink is free software which allows easy creation of animated computer tutorials.Pages , in Tested Studies for Laboratory Teaching, Volume 29 (K.L. Clase, Editor). Proceedings of the 29th Workshop/Conference of the Association for Biology Laboratory Education (ABLE), 433 pages.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Use solely at one’s own institution with no intent for profit is excluded from the preceding copyright restriction, unless otherwise noted on the copyright notice of the individual chapter in this volume. Proper credit to this publication must be included in your laboratory outline for each use; a sample citation is given above. Upon obtaining permission or with the “sole use at one’s own institution” exclusion, ABLE strongly encourages individuals to use the exercises in this proceedings volume in their teaching program.

Although the laboratory exercises in this proceedings volume have been tested and due consideration has been given to safety, individuals performing these exercises must assume all responsibilities for risk. The Association for Biology Laboratory Education (ABLE) disclaims any liability with regards to safety in connection with the use of the exercises in this volume.

The focus of ABLE is to improve the undergraduate biology laboratory experience by promoting the development and dissemination of interesting, innovative, and reliable laboratory exercises.

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1_{Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Sciences,}

Mount Royal College, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, T3E 6K6

2_{Biological Sciences, University of Delaware,}

225 Mckinly Lab, Newark, DE, USA, 19716

In today’s classes, students are more and more often being called upon to use specialized software packages. As all of us probably recall experiencing, getting familiar with new software is

often a frustrating experience. It’s difficult to follow keystrokes and data entry when new utilities

are being demonstrated, and the shorthand conventions we try to create in order to document the process being demonstrated becomes unwieldy. Trying to reproduce login sequences or data manipulation from our own notes reinforces the clumsiness of trying to capture, in a notebook, some of the routine keystrokes and other navigation standards for new software.

Expensive programs such as Macromedia’s Captivate can produce animations which are patient and persistent to assist people in becoming familiar with new applications. The skills required to use these programs are not very demanding. Well-designed timelines and easily-recognizable icons allow for rapid production of new instructional materials. Even better, the software to play back these tutorials has been standardized to Flash, a now-ubiquitous player that is supported by most common operating systems.

A new, free (!) piece of software from DeBugMode called Wink allows for rapid and easy construction of Flash tutorials demonstrating how to use pretty much any computer application. There is a Windows version and one for Linux (untried by these authors). The output can be tweaked

to render in Flash, portable document (pdf), or as a self-executing (exe) file. The captured keystrokes can be annotated with “speech bubbles” (callouts) and frames can have audio files added to them. Tracking of the animated mouse is easily modified as well. Although the source files are quite large (for example, 19 Mb), they compress to a much smaller format after creating the finished files (2.2

Mb).

Wink is available free from http://www.debugmode.com

WINK IS FREE SOFTWARE WHICH ALLOWS EASY

CREATION OF ANIMATED

COMPUTER TUTORIALS

Nickle, Todd C.

1

, and Hodson, Robert

2

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WINK IS FREE SOFTWARE

WHICH ALLOWS EASY

CREATION OF ANIMATED

COMPUTER TUTORIALS

Nickle, Todd C

1

, and Hodson, Robert

2

1

Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Sciences,

Mount Royal College, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, T3E 6K6

2

Biological Sciences, University of Delaware,

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INTRODUCTION

In today’s classes, students are more and more often

being called upon to use specialized software packages.

As all of us probably recall experiencing, getting

familiar with new software is often a frustrating

experience. It’s difficult to follow keystrokes and data

entry when new utilities are being demonstrated, and

the shorthand conventions we try to create in order to

document the process being demonstrated becomes

unwieldy. Trying to reproduce login sequences or data

manipulation from our own notes reinforces the

clumsiness of trying to capture, in a notebook, some of

the routine keystrokes and other navigation standards

for new software.

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INTRODUCTION (2)

Expensive programs such as Macromedia’s

Captivate can produce animations which are

patient and persistent to assist people in

becoming familiar with new applications. The

skills required to use these programs are not

very demanding. Well-designed timelines and

easily-recognizable icons allow for rapid

production of new instructional materials. Even

better, the software to play back these tutorials

has been standardized to Flash

TM

, a

now-ubiquitous player that is supported by most

common operating systems.

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INTRODUCTION (3)

A new, free (!) piece of software from DeBugMode

called Wink allows for rapid and easy construction of

Flash tutorials demonstrating how to use pretty much any

computer application. There is a Windows version and

one for Linux (untried by these authors). The output can

be tweaked to render in Flash, portable document (pdf),

or as a self-executing (exe) file. The captured keystrokes

can be annotated with “speech bubbles” (callouts) and

frames can have audio files added to them. Tracking of

the animated mouse is easily modified as well. Although

the source files are quite large (for example, 19 Mb), they

compress to a much smaller format after creating the

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INSTALLATION

Go to the web site http://www.debugmode.com

and choose your platform. Wink runs on most

Windows systems and some Linux platforms.

Although some computers, such as those in student

labs, have heightened security levels, a normal user

without Administrator rights can often install Wink

onto a local system without IT assistance.

Audio input can be added with any

microphone-equipped device. No extra software is required.

Wink takes up about 12 Mb of disk space when

installed, including rendered tutorials about “How to

Use Wink”.

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Our Uses

Wink allows quick-and-easy creation of any application

we’ve set out to demonstrate. Most likely,

video-intensive software (such as Flash or Quicken) would

not fare well with Wink, but we haven’t tested this.

Preliminary testing on the Windows Vista operating

system caused dropped snapshots when using

Internet Explorer, but using Mozilla Firefox 2.0

restored full functionality.

The authors have not explored the self-executable

output as yet; because the Flash player comes

standard on most computers, the need for creating an

executable was not pressing.

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Examples of Our Uses

EXCEL

Basic statistics (e.g. standard

deviation)

Presentation of histograms

Presentation of line graphs

(scatter)

Calculation of standard deviation

WORD

Embedding figures in a

document

Formatting tables

Adding legends to diagrams

Spell-checking

INTERNET BROWSERS

Uploading files

Pasting data into

plagiarism-detection software systems

Using BlackBoard features (Web

CT)

SPECIALTY SOFTWARE

QBit data acquisition software

Wink “how to” demonstrations

eInstruction “clicker” interfaces

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Links

Portable Document File of

original poster

Portable Document File of

original handout

Some sample files

Wink

tutorial 1

(from the makers of Wink)

Wink

tutorial 2

(from the makers of Wink)