A SourceSuite is a guided digital experience designed to help a learner engage in a close reading of a text.
An example can be found here: Darkness and Light at the Beginning
The tool excels at directing and redirecting the focus of a learner to specific individual phrases, or to keywords within one larger text, but also has the capacity to move between multiple texts.
Our SourceSuite Viewer is engineered to easily accept new content.
Using the following steps, you can convert a spreadsheet like this, into a SourceSuite like this.
To create your own SourceSuite do the following:
- Make a copy of this Google Sheet.
- Each row represents one slide in a SourceSuite. Column A represents the left column, which usually contains the commentary or the prompt. Column B is the right main column, which usually contains the primary content. A1 and B1 will be shown together on the first slide, A2 and B2 on the second, and so on.
- You can add line breaks to your right hand content by pressing Ctrl + Enter (for Windows) or Command ⌘ + Return (for Mac)
- If the content in Column B is from a different text then the previous slide, the viewer will crossfade and show the new one. If the content in Column B is from the same text, the viewer will zoom in or out to accomodate the targeted content.
- Only a single range of text can be zoomed in Column B at anytime. You should mark this range's start and end with an asterisk
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. If you want the entire text in view on the screen, set the asterisk at the start and end of the content. For best results, you should zoom to a block of content (i.e. a whole paragraph rather than individual words). - You may add emphasis to as many phrases, words, or segments of text as you desire. To do this, simply mark the start and end of every emphasized range with an underscore
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- When you're done editing your SourceSuite, use the built-in share function on Google Sheets and share it with [email protected] -- He'll convert the spreadsheet into the proper SourceSuite format and upload your template to the web so it can be shared.