Composica provides a simple and quick integration of mashup elements from popular external services into the project. The customization of these elements is done from within Composica.
Mashups can be inserted using Interactions > Mashups.
The YouTube Video element allows you to search and embed streaming videos directly from YouTube into the course. This can become a good source of existing material that can be harnessed to create quick and effective training units.
The <Source> property of the element provides an interface to search, sort, preview, and finally embed YouTube videos based on their ID or associated keywords.
After selecting a video, press the YouTube Player button to embed the video using the native YouTube interface, or the Media Player button to embed the video using the media player. Once a video is embedded you can control different aspects of the element from the Settings tab in the Properties pane.
The Universal Search element allows the learner to perform a search in one or more search engines. This encourages the learner to be involved in retrieving the information, while remaining in the environment of the course, which can improve the quality of learning.
Additional Search Engine elements can be added using Universal Search > Add Search Engine according to need. Select each Search Engine sub-element and use its <Search In> property of the Settings tab to select one of the listed search engines to use. You can also set the value to custom and specify a URL for a search engine of your choice.
The search results can be set to be displayed in an external window (default) or inside the page, using the <Show Results In> property under the Settings tab. The searched term can also be pre-populated by simply typing the term in the Text Field sub-element of the search.
The Facebook Like Button element allows learners to express interest in a document, and share it with their Facebook friends, allowing for community interest in the course, and a social learning experience. The interface contains a button which users can use to ‘like’ the document, and also lists the number (and possibly faces) of other people who liked this document. The look and feel of the interface can be customized using several properties.
The Google Chart element provides a quick and simple way to enrich the project with charts of several types, based on data entered directly into the element.
The chart type is set in the <Chart Type> property under the Settings tab (types include: line, columns, pie, venn and more). Each type is accompanied with several attributes such as: Size, Colors, Labels and Legend, to allow maximum control over its look and feel. Select each Data Point sub-element and from the Settings tab, use the <Data> property to enter the data and the <Label> property to add a label to that piece of data.
The Google Map Chart element is a variation of the Google Chart element. It provides the ability to create thematic maps of different geographical areas, based on data entered directly into the element.
The <Geographical Area> property under the Settings tab (available when View > Advanced Properties mode is selected) lists different geographical areas. When a Data Point is selected, a country code (see links below) can be set in the <Label> property and this country will be highlighted on the map accordingly.
See Google’s list of supported country codes, and of supported state codes for the USA.
After you’ve enhanced your documents with mashups, you can make the learning experience easier by adding narration.