In the Introduction, we briefly explained that we could generate our lessons either in the .HTM or the .ASP file type. Which type of lesson we want to create depends on which web server we intend to run the lesson file on. If our server is
When we decide which type of web lesson to create, generating the Digital Teacher web lesson files is a matter of choosing a file type, and exporting a selected Digital Teacher book from the Digital Teacher authoring program's Publisher Library window to our hard disk.
We can deploy the .HTM type lesson either on the Unix or Windows-based server. However, we can neither retrieve the student results from the lesson nor view online progress for the lesson.
This means that deploying the HTM type lesson can only be adequate for
tutorials, homework, study, or courses. We might also want to deploy the .HTM type
lesson for quizzes or tests for the self-testing purposes, such as for pre-test and
post-test.
When we create a lesson in the ASP file type, we should deploy it on a Windows-based server that runs an ASP-capable web server software.
Deploying the Digital Teacher web lesson in the .ASP type enhances our lesson functionality.
First of all, we can automatically retrieve student results. This capability allows us to perform post-exam analysis for grades, questions, answers, and performances. Secondly, it provides us with capability of viewing the scores and test progress in real time for lessons currently being deployed online. For more details, please see Online Gradebook
.HTM type lesson, - myLesson.HTM executes lesson; controls user interface - myLesson.JS provides lesson data .ASP type lesson, - myLesson.ASP executes lesson; controls user interface - myLesson.JS provides lesson data - myLesson.WSD provides/collects student information or - myLesson.ASP executes lesson, and controls user interface - myLesson.WSD provides/collects student information and lesson data
As you might have noticed, all the files generated for a single lesson share the same name - except the file extension.
The file with the .JS extension is the Javascript script file that contains actual lesson contents such as questions and answers.
The WSD file is a database that contains student information. This file is used to
verify students and collect performance results when you publish a lesson in the .ASP file
type. Optionally, the WSD file can also contain all the lesson data, thus replacing
the .JS file.
As shown in the previous topic, we can include our lesson data either in JS or in WSD for our .ASP type lesson. Then which is better than the other?
When the lesson data is requested from a .JS page, which is an ordinary text file, the server simply reads the .JS page and sends out the data as text stream to the browser.
On the other hand, when the lesson data is requested from a .wsd file, the server needs to retrieve data from the database before serving it out to the browser. Obviously, this can increase the serving time.
However, when the data is read from .JS, the browser's Javascript, which is an intepreted language, reads out data line by line while the data retrieved from .WSD is received as a lump sum of an array. So, in this respect, serving your lesson data from .JS can be slower. Besides, it all depends on many other factors, such as the current server traffic and the performance of the server.
Therefore, you should experiment to determine which method is better than the other. In general, when your lesson contains a moderate amount of data, you might want to create it in a .JS file.
Checking the [Send data from database] check box will generate the .WSD file that contains lesson contents in addition to student information.
In this case, we will have the following 2 files generated,
- myLesson.ASP - myLesson.WSD
thus, the number of files to upload is reduced, by eliminating the myLesson.JS file.
Note: For the "Survey" type lesson,
the .JS file is always created and the lesson contents are read from the .JS file.
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