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We should be able to remove the painful experience of configuring xblocks through a JSON block in advanced settings, and recognize that course educators deserve to spent time in an easy to use authoring environment not an administrator like tool experience.
We hope this encourages broader review and use of existing XBlocks and encourages educators to explore other blocks already enabled at the instance level that they may not know exist because of the advanced settings configuration pre-requisite to seeing these blocks on Unit pages.
This would make incremental progress toward course level common xblock default settings, and also provide a home for LTI configuration and visibility at the course level.
Concept Sketches
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These are v1.1 updates to the original visuals for this effort. What is included in the next design is still TBD, but this shows some of the patterns being echoed from the content libraries work in development currently around content block cards.
Figma collateral for input and feedback as well: https://www.figma.com/design/9ucY7R9hOfRmQWLgnJsLyF/Visual-XBlock-Configuration?node-id=26-6912&t=5tUFP5AWC2uNVNxl-1
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Milestones and / or Epics
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Tag | Class | In Unit? | Default On? (Proposed) | Category (Proposed) | Description | Notes | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
acid |
| NO | -- | -- | Technically a component, and technically could go into a Unit, but it has no pedagogical value–it exists only to test XBlock functionality. | |||||
acid_parent |
| NO | -- | -- | Exists only to test XBlock container functionality. | |||||
| YES | No | Advanced | In an annotation problem, you highlight specific text inside a larger text block and then ask questions about that text. The questions appear when learners move their cursors over the highlighted text. The questions also appear in a section below the text block, along with space for learners’ responses. | No editor. | |||||
book |
| -- | -- | |||||||
chapter |
| NO | -- | -- | This is a Section. | |||||
| YES | Yes (if UI) | Advanced | Intended to gate access to some piece of content through some code-level conditions, e.g. “they attempted this other problem first”. | There’s a GUI here, but it seems half-baked. I think it would need more work before we turn it on by default. | |||||
course |
| NO | -- | -- | This is the root of a Course. Also where all the advanced settings live. | |||||
course_info |
| NO | -- | -- | This is what goes in the “About the Course” blurb if you’re using edx-platform’s built-in enrollment/marketing views. | |||||
https://github.com/openedx/crowdsourcehinter/blob/master/crowdsourcehinter/crowdsourcehinter.py | YES | No | Advanced | The Crowdsource Hinter serves to provide students with hints when they incorrectly answer a problem within a course. The hinter is compatible with numerical input and text input type problems. | No editor. Prototype. Will not scale to large classes. | |||||
custom_tag_template |
| -- | ||||||||
customtag |
| -- | ||||||||
discuss |
| -- | ||||||||
discussion |
https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/discussion_block.py | YES | No | Advanced | Inline discussion block. I can’t find an explicit DEPR for this, but this component has largely been sidelined in favor of marking the Unit discussable and putting those discussions in the right-hand context panel. | We’re moving away from this. | ||||
done |
https://github.com/openedx/DoneXBlock/blob/master/done/done.py | YES | No | Advanced | This is titled “Completion” in the UI. A simple way to let students mark and track that they’ve completed something, but it doesn’t actually interact with our completion API (i.e. the thing that marks a Unit “complete” and gives you a check mark). (Dave’s opinion): I think we should eventually fold this into the Unit itself, like how we did for discussions. The heuristics we use to estimate completion in the Completion API are not always reliable, and run into edge cases that it can’t really handle gracefully. We can keep the heuristics, but I’d like to have an override where someone can say, “Yeah, I did this. Really. Now let’s move on.” | |||||
drag-and-drop-v2 |
https://github.com/openedx/xblock-drag-and-drop-v2/blob/master/drag_and_drop_v2/drag_and_drop_v2.py | YES | Yes | Our supported Drag and Drop component. | On by default. | |||||
edx_sga |
https://github.com/mitodl/edx-sga/blob/master/edx_sga/sga.py | YES | Yes | Staff Graded Assessment, maintained by MIT ODL. | ||||||
error |
https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/error_block.py | NO | -- | This is what the LMS renders when something goes wrong while trying to render other XBlock types. | ||||||
google-calendar |
https://github.com/openedx/xblock-google-drive/blob/master/google_drive/google_calendar.py | YES | Yes | Advanced | Iframes a specified Google Calendar. Workaround from the time before Dates tab existed. Any usefulness it has in a course likely points to areas where the Dates tab needs to be improved. | |||||
google-document |
https://github.com/openedx/xblock-google-drive/blob/master/google_drive/google_docs.py | YES | Yes | Advanced | Works for any Google Drive document, not just word processing–so slides can show up here, for instance. Also works via iframe embed. | |||||
hidden |
https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/hidden_block.py | NO | -- | This is what the system uses when it can’t find an XBlock class to match a given tag in the data. Usually this happens because you’ve imported a course into a new site that doesn’t have that particular XBlock installed. | ||||||
html |
https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/html_block.py | YES | Yes | Common | This is the component created when you create a new “Text” component. Already on by default. | |||||
image |
| -- | ||||||||
library |
https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/library_root_xblock.py | NO | -- | This is the root XBlock for a ModuleStore-based (v1) Content Library. | ||||||
library_content |
https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/library_content_block.py | YES | Yes | Common | XBlock used for adding library content to a course. | |||||
lti |
https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/lti_block.py | YES | No | -- | Our unsupported LTI XBlock. | |||||
lti_consumer |
https://github.com/openedx/xblock-lti-consumer/blob/master/lti_consumer/lti_xblock.py | YES | Yes | Common | Our supported LTI XBlock. I believe there are still one or two things that the old version does that this one doesn’t support, which is part of why we haven’t managed to kill the old one yet. | |||||
openassessment |
https://github.com/openedx/edx-ora2/blob/master/openassessment/xblock/openassessmentblock.py | YES | Yes | Common | Open Response Assessment, i.e. self/peer/staff grading of short essay responses. One of the most complex XBlocks. | On by default. | ||||
https://github.com/open-craft/xblock-poll/blob/master/poll/poll.py | YES | Yes | Advanced | Supported Polling XBlock. | ||||||
https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/poll_block.py | YES | No | -- | Unsupported Polling XBlock. | No editor. | |||||
problem |
https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/capa_block.py | YES | Yes | Common | The most important assessment type with a variety of advanced input and response types ranging from multiple choice to schematic editors. | On by default. | ||||
randomize |
https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/randomize_block.py | YES | ? | Advanced | Selects exactly one child item to display to a given student. | Has GUI | ||||
https://github.com/openedx/RecommenderXBlock/blob/master/recommender/recommender.py | YES | No | Advanced | The recommender provides learners with a list of online resources related to the course content. These resources are jointly managed by course team members and the learners. | Not supported. Scaling concerns. Not very polished. | |||||
scorm |
| YES | Yes | Advanced | Needs a license to be enabled, might not be possible to default on | |||||
sequential |
| NO | -- | This is a Subsection. | ||||||
slides |
| -- | -- | |||||||
| YES | Yes | Advanced | This is a Content Experiment to show different groups of people different content. It works by essentially making two mini-units inside the main Unit. | ||||||
https://github.com/openedx/staff_graded-xblock/blob/master/staff_graded/staff_graded.py | YES | No | Advanced | Pre-cursor to | ||||||
static_tab |
| NO | -- | -- | This lets you put HTML as a custom tab in the courseware, alongside things like Dates and Progress. | |||||
https://github.com/open-craft/xblock-poll/blob/master/poll/poll.py | YES | Yes | Advanced | A more sophisticated polling, and lives in the same repo as the | ||||||
unit |
https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/unit_block.py | NO | -- | Similar to Vertical in principle, but intended to be simpler and better decoupled from the LMS ( | ||||||
vertical |
https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/vertical_block.py | NO | -- | Representation of a Unit in a Course. | ||||||
video |
https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/video_block/video_block.py | YES | Yes | Common | Videos. | On by default. | ||||
videoalpha |
https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/video_block/video_block.py | YES* | -- | -- | Just an alias for the normal video tag. The backstory on this is that the VideoAlpha XBlock was created to add some new features that the VideoModule didn’t have, like HTML5 video playback. That code was eventually merged into the VideoModule, which eventually became VideoBlock. This alias was maintained so that those few courses that did use This alias costs basically nothing to maintain since the attributes were designed to be fully compatible. But there’s no good reason to ever use it on new content. | |||||
videodev |
| -- | -- | |||||||
https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/blob/master/xmodule/word_cloud_block.py | YES | Yes | Advanced | Our surprisingly popular “have everyone type some words and graphically demonstrate which things came up the most often” XBlock. | wrapper |
| NO | -- | This is a weird subclass of VerticalBlock for layout purposes. Technically STRUCTURAL, but sort of SYSTEM in the sense that nobody should be using this in their OLX. |
Using only the items marked “In Unit” above, here is a candidate list (still draft) for advanced blocks to default on for instances.
Common (6) | Advanced ( 8 ) |
---|---|
HTML / Text, LTI, Problem, Video, Open Response Assessment, Library Content | Conditional, Scorm, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Poll, Randomize, Split Test, Survey, Word Cloud, |
...
YES | Yes | Advanced | Our surprisingly popular “have everyone type some words and graphically demonstrate which things came up the most often” XBlock. | |||
wrapper |
| NO | -- | This is a weird subclass of VerticalBlock for layout purposes. Technically STRUCTURAL, but sort of SYSTEM in the sense that nobody should be using this in their OLX. |
Using only the items marked “In Unit” above, here is a candidate list (still draft) for advanced blocks to default on for instances.
Common (6) | Advanced ( 8 ) |
---|---|
HTML / Text, LTI, Problem, Video, Open Response Assessment, Library Content | Conditional, Scorm, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Poll, Randomize, Split Test, Survey, Word Cloud, |
Seeing this list makes me think we may want to consider a process through which we can update the default list of advanced blocks that we include here, since there are many more xblocks that are actively maintained and supported.
It is helpful to know the starting list for what is enabled today and we can start here, but the list of Advanced blocks can likely grow in the near future.
Archived Concept Sketches
Included below are visually originally generated for the proposal, but pushed down into this area in favor of current visuals highlighted above.
Expand | ||
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Some quick sketches showing a possible initial version (mostly just a visual exploration here) of a new element on Pages & Resources for Content Blocks. The nested page would explore a table view of Common, Advanced, and LTI Content Blocks with ways to enable / disable / configure these blocks that could be added over time. Potential opportunity to also visually convey block counts, usage, and eventually other things like support level, mobile friendliness, or other optional metadata you could imagine configuring using a flexible table pattern. |