JClic is an environment for the creation, implementation and evaluation of multimedia educational activities, developed in the Java programming language. It is a free software application based on open standards that work across operating environments: GNU / Linux, Mac OS X, Windows and Solaris.
The JClic project is an evolution of Clic 3.0, a tool for creating multimedia educational applications with more than 10 years of history program. Throughout this time there have been many educators who have used it to create interactive activities where procedural aspects as various working areas of the curriculum, from kindergarten to high school.
The objectives at the start of JClic project are:
- Getting people can make fun games
- Make possible the use of educational multimedia applications "online", directly from the Internet.
- Maintain compatibility with the existing Clic 3.0 applications.
- Enable their use on different platforms and operating systems such as Windows, GNU / Linux, Solaris or Mac OS X.
- Using a standard and open for data storage format, in order to make them transparent to other applications and facilitate their integration into resource databases.
- Widening the scope of cooperation and exchange of materials among schools and educators of different countries and cultures, facilitating the translation and adaptation of both the program and the created activities.
- Collect suggestions for improvements and expansions that users have been sending.
- To enable the project, extending from the cooperative work between different programming teams.
- Create an environment for creating more powerful, simple and intuitive activities, adapting to the characteristics of the current graphics user environments.
JClic is made up of four applications:
- JClic applet: An "applet" that allows embedding JClic activities on a web page.
- JClic player: A standalone program that once installed allows you to carry out activities from the computer's hard drive (or from the network) without having to be connected to the Internet.
- JClic author: The authoring tool that allows creating, editing and publishing activities in a simpler, more visual and intuitive way.
- JClic reports: A module for collecting data and generating reports on the results of the activities carried out by the students.
JClic compatibility and new possibilities
The development of the JClic has been done trying to respect to the maximum the compatibility with the Clic 3.0 program, so that the existing activity packages can be automatically recognized by the new platform.
These are some of the news of JClic regarding Clic 3.0:
- Use of customizable graphical user environments ("skins"), which contain the buttons and the other graphical elements that frame the activities.
- Using BMP, GIF, JPG and PNG graphics
- Incorporation of multimedia resources in WAV, MP3, AVI, MPEG, QuickTime and Flash 2.0 formats, among others, as well as animated and transparent GIFs.
- Event sounds (click, match, complete, hit, miss ...) configurable for each activity or project.
- Shapers that control the appearance of the boxes of the activities: with JClic it is no longer necessary to always be rectangular.
- Visual improvements: Ability to write HTML code in boxes, embedding "TrueType" fonts, styled text, use of gradients and semi-transparent colors ...
- New features of the activities: maximum time, maximum number of attempts, order of resolution, memory activities with two blocks of content, etc.
The programming tool chosen was Java, and the format for storing the data of the activities is XML.