[DG: Teaching & Learning] Thoughts on a New Focus for the Sakai Teaching and Learning Group

Wed Aug 19 10:40:19 PDT 2009

Ohh.  Process.  Very different.  Never mind.

- Mark

Josh Baron wrote:
>
> Mark,
>
> Thanks for your quick reply and for your earlier leadership in this area.
>
> The project you've listed sound interesting but I think the issue that 
> I'm hoping to see folks discussing and addressing is more about 
> "process" at this point.  There seems to be a lot of interest in 
> having a new process for creating these "instructional visions" for 
> what Sakai should be facilitating from a teaching and learning 
> perspective but we don't have a clear idea of how we actual should 
> engage in this work.  Thus the need to discuss process at this point.
>
> Josh
>
> -----------------------------
> Joshua Baron
> Director, Academic Technology and eLearning
> Marist College
> Poughkeepsie, New York  12601
> (845) 575-3623 (work)
> Twitter: JoshBaron
>
>
> From: 	Mark Norton <markjnorton at earthlink.net>
> To: 	Josh Baron <Josh.Baron at marist.edu>, 
> "pedagogy at collab.sakaiproject.org" <pedagogy at collab.sakaiproject.org>
> Date: 	08/19/2009 11:39 AM
> Subject: 	Re: [DG: Teaching & Learning] Thoughts on a New Focus for 
> the Sakai Teaching and Learning Group
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> Rather than responding all of the lists, I'm just responding to the
> Pedagogy list.  Cross post if you feel it's appropriate, Josh.
>
> You may recall that I participated in the very early pedagogy group
> calls and dropped out after the work of the group became focused on
> promoting good pedagogy in Sakai (via TWSIA and other methods). I remain
> very interested in exploring the use of technology for teaching and
> learning.
>
> Since that time, I have become involved with three projects that may be
> of interest to this group:
>
> 1.  SoftChalk LessonBuilder
> Some of you may have seen a demonstration of the SoftChalk LessonBuilder
> application at the Sakai Conference this summer.  LessonBuilder is a
> content authoring application that provides very simple and easy to use
> tools to create content that can be delivered as either linked web pages
> or as a SCORM package.  I have been working on integrating this into
> Sakai and will be conducting a beta test program in the next month or
> so.  I believe that a powerful content authoring tool like LessonBuilder
> could open up new support for pedagogy in Sakai.
>
> 2.  Digital Marketplace
> The California State University system has been working to create a set
> of specifications and tools that would allow an instructor to select and
> recommend the education resources need for a course facilitated by an
> online support environment like Sakai.  The system allows free,
> licensed, and fee-based materials to be recommended and provides support
> to students for purchasing and fulfillment via the web, delivery
> services, or campus bookstores.  In particular, the system has the
> ability to reduce the cost of educational materials by recommending
> digital versions of textbooks (etc) if available.  I have been engaged
> as the Production Architect and I am working with a team towards a
> limited pilot/rollout early next year.
>
> 3.  OER Development
> As a result of engagement in the Digital Marketplace effort, I have
> become interested in the development of Open Education Resources (OER).  
> These include Open Courseware material, free text books (such Flex-books
> from CK12.com and wikibooks), free courses (wikiversity.org), and
> peer-reviewed online learning modules such as those offered by Merlot.  
> I am in the process of developing a course at wikiversity and I'm
> interested in talking with other people who have experience in such 
> efforts.
>
> Are these the sorts of things you are talking about, Josh?
>
> - Mark Norton
>
>
> Josh Baron wrote:
> >
> > Sakai Colleagues,
> >
> > In lieu of our usual weekly "teaching and learning" conference call, I
> > would like to share some thoughts the future of these calls and some
> > new ideas that have surface following the 10th International Sakai
> > Conference in Boston this past July.  I recognize that this e-mail is
> > very long and detailed but I felt that in order to engage a larger and
> > broad audience that a posting to multiple lists, rather than phone
> > calls, was best.  
> >
> > I know that this is a busy time of the year for many of us but if you
> > can dedicate a few minutes to reviewing this and posting comments that
> > would be great.  To assist in freeing up some of your time, I'm
> > suggesting below that we not have our regular call for the next
> > several weeks and then reschedule it for a new day/time.
> >
> > As many of you are aware, there were several sessions at the Boston
> > conference focused on the need to find new ways for our community to
> > discuss, identify and document the types of instructional practices
> > that Sakai needs to support now and into the near as well as distant
> > future.  Some of this "need" centers around finding new models for the
> > type of "requirements gathering" that has been attempted in the past.
> >  Beyond this, there also seems to be a strong desire to implement new
> > processes that would produce "tool/technology agnostic" visions of the
> > types of instructional practices (ranging from traditional to
> > innovative) that future versions of Sakai should facilitate and support.
> >
> > Following the conference there have been a number of discussions
> > taking place in various groups and settings, including several members
> > of the newly formed Product Council, as to how we might engage in this
> > new work.  Some of the ideas (but not all) and commentary on this can
> > be found in Confluence at http://tinyurl.com/nuzsu2.  In addition, the
> > folks within the Portfolio group have shared some of the "visioning"
> > work that they have been engaged in for some time that many feel could
> > represent a good model for the larger community (likely requiring some
> > small modification).  Examples of their work can be found at
> > http://tinyurl.com/mx5uvb.  I have participated in some of the weekly
> > Portfolio/OSP calls recently and believe that they are interested in
> > engaging in some broader work in this area.
> >
> > WHERE IS THIS ALL GOING?
> > I, and I believe others, feel that in order to move forward with some
> > practical work in this area that we need to establish a regular (I
> > think weekly but that is open to debate) conference call that is
> > dedicated to such an effort.  At the same time, we need to broaden the
> > participation beyond the folks who have been regularly participating
> > in the Teaching and Learning calls as means to increase the resources
> > (i.e. people time) going into this work and to have a more diverse set
> > of institutions represented (particularly more international schools).
> >
> > Because of these issues, I would like to make two proposals:
> >
> > (1) Re-purpose the Sakai T&L call to focus on "instructional
> > visioning" activities.  This would mean shifting our calls away from
> > the Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award program and other
> > conference-related discussions.  I am currently talking with Michael
> > Korcuska about how the Foundation could assist with the TWSIA work
> > (with continued involved of folks from this group) and also believe
> > that we could move the other conference-related discussions to the
> > Conference Planning Committee calls.
> >
> > (2) Reschedule the call during a time that will allow a more diverse
> > and larger group to participate.  This may end up requiring some
> > creative approaches in order to include various time zones.  
> >
> > NEXT STEPS
> > I would like to hear from folks "on list" as to any concerns,
> > thoughts, suggestions, etc. related to these issues and proposed
> > changes.  I would like to particularly encourage folks who are new to
> > either the community or these calls to share their thoughts.  Having
> > this discussion on list rather than on our calls will allow for
> > greater participation (I hope).
> >
> > I would also like to suggest that we temporarily postpone the regular
> > Wednesday at 11:30 AM EDT "Teaching and Learning" call with the plan
> > of re-starting these calls in mid- to late-September.  This will allow
> > us to some time to find a new day/time as well as free of some time
> > for all of us to think about and start to discuss (on list) the
> > details of how we might proceed with practical work.  Unless there is
> > objection to this, I will put out some e-mails over the next couple of
> > weeks in an effort to find a good time(s) for out future calls.
> >
> > Finally, I am going to put some time and effort into updating the
> > Teaching and Learning Confluence page to clean up the older content (I
> > won't remove it obviously, just re-organize it) and try and set up
> > some pages that will hopefully facilitate some of our initial work in
> > this area.
> >
> > I'm looking forward to engaging more on these issues on list with
> > everyone.
> >
> > Thanks, Josh
> >
> > -----------------------------
> > Joshua Baron
> > Director, Academic Technology and eLearning
> > Marist College
> > Poughkeepsie, New York  12601
> > (845) 575-3623 (work)
> > Twitter: JoshBaron
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
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