[Announcements] Sakai Newsletter February 2, 2012

Margaret Wagner mwagner at umich.edu
Thu Feb 9 13:28:33 PST 2012


Sakai Newsletter


February 2, 2012


1.  Share Your OAE Pilot Information

2.  Call for Entries for the 2012 Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award

3.  Middle East Regional Sakai Meeting, April 4 & 5

4.  Sakai in Spanish Hospitals

5.  Free Book (limited time): Sakai -- Free as in Freedom (Alpha)

6.  Call for Participation in Combined T&L Design Lenses, Portfolio  
Visioning, and Teaching and Learning with OAE Group

7.  Oxford's WebLearn:  Supporting Tutorials and a New Guidance Site

8.  Webinar:  "Increasing Student Engagement with the Sakai Wiki"

9.  Events


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1. Share Your OAE Pilot Information

Planning a pilot of the Sakai Open Academic Environment? We'd love to  
hear about it. Drop iandolphin at sakaifoundation.org a line with a few  
details, including...

- Institution
- Contact email
- Number of participants
- Stack used
- Name use for branding purposes

If you have a screen shot of your OAE landing page you're willing to  
share, we'd appreciate a copy.

Please also let me know if you would like further details of  
participating in the Sakai OAE pilot group -- a way to share your  
experiences, learn from others, and interact with the core OAE team.

Ian Dolphin
iandolphin at sakaifoundation.org


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2. Call for Entries for the 2012 Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award

The Sakai Teaching and Learning community is seeking entries for the  
5th annual Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award (TWSIA) competition.  
The award recognizes innovation and excellence in technology-supported  
teaching, academic collaboration, and student engagement. Since the  
first call for submissions in 2008, educators from institutions around  
the world have submitted their entries in the annual competition.

New this year is the creation of a separate category for portfolio  
sites, which will be judged by updated criteria. The other award  
categories are: "Higher Education: Face-to-face," "Higher Education:  
Fully Online or Hybrid Course," "Primary and Secondary Education  
(K-12)," and "Project Sites & Other Uses of Sakai." We look forward to  
entries from those using the Sakai CLE and also those pioneering the  
Sakai OAE (Open Academic Environment).

Entries are now being accepted on the Open Ed Practices, which  
provides information for applicants on how to enter the competition,  
including a description of the award categories, and the rubrics and  
definition of innovation used to judge entries.

The closing date for entries is March 2, 2012. Winners will be  
notified May 1, 2012 and may have their expenses paid to Atlanta,  
Georgia to present their winning entries at the Jasig/Sakai  
Conference, June 10-15, 2012.

To apply for the award, and for more information, please go to  
www.openedpractices.org/twsia.

Contact: 2012 TWSIA Committee Chair: maggie at thanospartners.com

Kate Ellis
Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning
Indiana University Bloomington
kdellis at indiana.edu


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3. Middle East Regional Sakai Meeting, April 4 & 5

The Higher Colleges of Technology & CERT (Centre of Excellence for  
Applied Research & Training) and Edia are pleased to announce the  
first Middle East Regional Sakai Meeting, to be held on April 4 & 5,  
2012 in Abu Dhabi (UAE) at the HCT Abu Dhabi Women's College campus.

The aim of the meeting will be to bring together stakeholders from the  
region and provide a platform for exchange and fostering community  
development.

The program for both days will include invited speakers, stakeholder  
meetings, BoFs and various public demonstrations of Sakai. During the  
event, special attention will be given to mobile applications of Sakai.

At this point, the organizing committee wants to gauge the level of  
interest from people within the international Sakai community to  
participate in the meeting. We would like to invite those who are  
interested in participating to provide their information on the  
meeting's website at http://hct.edia.nl/portal/site/regional

Participation in the meeting will be free of cost and registration  
will start February 15th. More information on the meeting, traveling  
and accommodation will follow in the next weeks. In the meantime, feel  
free to spread the news and contact us if you have questions or  
suggestions.

We hope to welcome you in Abu Dhabi this spring!

On behalf of the organizing committee,

Saleem Raza, saleem.raza at hct.ac.ae
Jaeques Koeman, jk at edia.nl


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4. Sakai in Spanish Hospitals

Samoo has finished the development of the "Sakai simplified tablet  
interface for children in hospitals," which we announced on Sakai  
mailing lists some time ago. The interface is built around restful  
services.  The web interface (this is not a native client) shows only  
the basic tools of Sakai in a very simple way. It is designed to be  
used by children through a tactile interface, from their hospital  
rooms, and to enable them to continue learning during periods of  
illness.

You can see a demo (in English) here: http://youtu.be/1o5296xIqa8

In Spain, all the hospitals have a team of teachers for the children  
who are patients, together with a schoolroom for them. It is often  
still difficult, of course, for children to participate, because they  
are confined to bed, or can't move from their rooms. This adaptation  
of Sakai is designed so that teachers in hospitals can send tasks and  
resources to them (the teacher using the usual Sakai interface) and  
the children can accomplish them from their room. Several hospitals in  
Spain have a touch screen providing a range of services to each bed;  
now interactive leaning can be one of them.

Sakai has been modified also to improve the experience for parents.  
Parents can connect to the system (with a standard Sakai interface)  
and communicate with the teachers. These users are "student-related"  
-- they can view the work done by their children, but not the work  
done by other students.  (This is new in Sakai and in general in  
LMS's. We describe it as the "individual watcher user".) To control  
this, a hierarchy of users can be defined in Sakai with parents and  
children. We have also added other tools, such as a "notes" tool,  
where a teacher can add information about the students and choose  
whether parents can read it or not.

You can see a demo of this changes (in Spanish) here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgaEJn-ribc&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Tc2JSiR04&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

If you are interested in this product or part of it, please contact  
Samoo through:

Diego del Blanco Orobitg
diego.delblanco at samoo.es


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5. Free Book (limited time): Sakai -- Free as in Freedom (Alpha)

Hi All,

I just republished "Sakai: Free as in Freedom (Alpha)" book on the  
Apple iBookStore for reading with the iPad.  Ultimately this will be a  
"for pay" $4.99 book with a partial free preview, but until all my  
iTunes Connect accounts are set up, I have the entire book up for free  
as a preview.

Here is my blog post about Apple's iBooks Author:

http://www.dr-chuck.com/csev-blog/2012/01/ibooks-author-here-comes-apple-the-publishing-world-ends-in-2017-rant/

Here is the book on iTunes:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/sakai-free-as-in-freedom-a/id498303410

Grab it now while it is free.   Comments / Reviews welcome.

Chuck Severance
csev at umich.edu


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6. Call for Participation in Combined T&L Design Lenses, Portfolio  
Visioning, and Teaching and Learning with OAE Group

Greetings,

For the last two years, two subgroups within the Sakai Teaching and  
Learning communities -- the Portfolio Visioning group and the T&L  
Design Lenses group -- have been meeting regularly to articulate a  
functional vision and provide input into the next-generation Sakai  
platform, which is now known as Sakai Open Academic Environment (OAE).

Recently, these groups decided to try to start meeting and working  
together given their many shared values, needs, and goals, not to  
mention the fact that many of the same people participate in both  
groups.  The combined group will be facilitated by Jon Hays (UC  
Berkeley), Bob Squillace (NYU), and me, and Debbie Runshe will help  
with group communication and coordination.  Our purpose will be to  
provide feedback to the OAE User Reference Group on OAE planning and  
design documents, as well as to document user needs, use cases, and  
requirements (from the T&L and portfolio perspectives) to help inform  
future design and development.  Both Jon and I sit on the OAE URG (Jon  
as an institutional representative and I as an invited representative  
from the portfolio community) and are thus well positioned to serve as  
liaisons between our workgroup and the OAE URG.

I write today to extend an invitation to those of you who were once  
active members of either group as well as anyone interested in  
discussing user needs and requirements for OAE to join us.  We will  
likely meet weekly or bi-weekly (schedule yet to be determined) and  
there may be some light "homework" between meetings.  The OAE project  
uses an agile development methodology, which often translates to very  
brief windows for providing feedback, so we'll need to be equally agile.

To sign up, create an account on the new community instance of Sakai  
OAE (https://oae-community.sakaiproject.org/) and join the group named  
"Teaching and Learning with OAE".   Bruce D'Arcus has graciously  
agreed let us use this space as the administrative home for this  
activity since its purpose overlaps with ours.   We hope that all who  
signed up for the Teaching and Learning with OAE group will also  
participate in the combined group.

We've set up a Doodle to try to find a meeting time that works all or  
most of the people who want to participate.  This is often difficult  
when dealing with participants across the world, but we will do our  
best to make it possible for anyone who wishes to participate.   When  
responding to the Doodle (URL below), please ignore the specific  
calendar dates and instead indicate your ability to attend recurring  
meetings on proposed day-of-week/time slot combinations.  Also, make  
sure you've got the proper time zone selected so the time-slots   
reflect display in your local time.

http://www.doodle.com/3pfuqy53qb4wpxiv#table

We will be in touch soon with information about the first meeting of  
the new year.  In the meantime, if you haven't had time to learn about  
or explore OAE, here are some useful resources

The OAE space in the Sakai Confluence wiki:
https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/3AK/OAE+Home

OAE Community Instance (This is a production server is where our group  
will do its work;  please don't create test accounts or data on this  
server.)
https://oae-community.sakaiproject.org/

Demo instance of OAE for experimenting (has the latest code and data  
will be periodically wiped; good for exploration and experimentation):
http://oae-demo.sakaiproject.org/

QA instance rebuilt frequently with the latest code being developed  
for the upcoming release (good for exploration and experimentation):
  https://qa20-us.sakaiproject.org:8088

QA instance that runs the previous release version of OAE (currently 1.1):
http://qa1-uk.sakaiproject.org

Best regards,

Lynn Ward, Principal Systems Analyst
Instructional Technology Systems and Services
leward at iupui.edu


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7. WebLearn:  Supporting Tutorials and a New Guidance Site

The tutorial system lies at the heart of Oxford's educational  
experience.  To further this practice, we have produced a video case  
study entitled WebLearn: Supporting Tutorials.  (WebLearn is Oxford's  
Sakai implementation.)

http://blogs.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg-casestudies/2012/01/16/supporting-tutorials-weblearn/

In addition, you can see and read about Oxford's new Guidance Site for  
WebLearn, which we have made easier to navigate and more visually  
appealing:

http://blogs.oucs.ox.ac.uk/adamweblearn/2012/01/new-guidance-site/

Adam Marshall
adam.marshall at oucs.ox.ac.uk


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8. Webinar:  "Increasing Student Engagement with the Sakai Wiki"

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

Please mark your calendars and plan to attend the fifth session in the  
Teaching with Sakai webinar series!

Wednesday, February 22, 2012
3 pm ET; noon PT
Register @ http://teachingwithsakai-05.eventbrite.com/  (URL provided  
the day before the event)

Session Description:

Dr. Scott Bowman, Assistant Professor, Department of Criminal Justice  
at Texas State University began the process of revising his Juvenile  
Justice course two years ago by adding the Sakai Wiki to his course  
site and by requiring students to do original research on the juvenile  
justice system in particular communities in the U.S.

The result was a transformed course and increased student engagement  
and excitement about course content. Bowman found students expended  
more time and effort on their wiki pages than he expected and  
delivered better quality work.

In the two years since Bowman won the Teaching With Sakai Innovation  
Award for his Juvenile Justice course, he has learned more about what  
works and what doesn't.  He will share his learning experiences in  
this webinar.

Teaching with Sakai Webinar Series
The Teaching with Sakai webinar series highlights effective teaching  
practices using Sakai.  Each webinar in the series begins with a  
20-minute presentation followed by facilitated discussion.

We hope to see you online!

Kim Eke
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Jon Hays
University of California-Berkeley

Kate Ellis
Indiana University-Bloomington


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9. Events

Middle East Regional Sakai Meeting
April 4 & 5, 2012
HCT Abu Dhabi Women's College
Abu Dhabi (UAE)

Jasig/Sakai Annual Conference
Sunday, June 10 - Friday, June 15, 2012
Supplementary half-day Jasig and Sakai Seminars on Sunday, June 10
Westin Peachtree Plaza
Atlanta, Georgia
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