A Tool

Overview

The Tool format is similar to a Package Overview but instead of showing learners how to use a specific library or package, you're showing them how to use a tool with some type of interface -- either graphical or command line.

For example:

• Exploratory data visualization with Tableau

• Searching NCBI Databases

• Getting the most out of RStudio

• Using a package management system (i.e. conda, virtualenv)

What are your 3-6 sections?

What are 3-6 basic tasks that a user should be able to accomplish with this tool? These should be on the order of using a menu item, a button, or a short workflow of roughly 2-6 steps.

For new users/introductory tutorials: what are the most common tasks? This also helps potential users understand what people use this tool for.

For intermediate/advanced users, recast this using The Task approach: show users how to accomplish something specific that requires them to complete 3-6 steps together.

Example

Exploratory Data Visualization with Tableau

• Make a bar chart

• Make a line graph

• Make a box plot

• Add an average line

• Plot linear regression results

• Use the dashboard view of the dataset

Do each of the things above with one dataset, and then have learners do it themselves with a separate dataset. To challenge fast learners, prompt them to investigate additional options or figure out how to change things like titles, labels, or colors.

Writing Exercises for this Type

With tutorials of this type, it can be harder for learners to check their work and know if they got the right answer - especially if you're teaching a graphical user interface (GUI, or point-and-click software). If you're teaching how to use a GUI, there's no code to compare to an answer key, and if they did something in a different way than you did (for example, with keyboard shortcuts instead of pull down menus), they may not be sure if what they did was right.

For this reason, it's important in tutorials of this type to be clear about what output they should get as a result of the exercise. What characteristics of the output (or data set, or visualization) can they check to make sure they did something correctly? Number of rows or column in a dataset? A particular feature that shows up on a visualization? A property of a data cell they can check?

In writing the exercise instructions, be clear about what output or effect they are trying to achieve. When going over the answer, acknowledge (if appropriate) that there may be other ways to complete the exercise, but that they should check for something that can be observed to see if they did it right.