[DG: Teaching & Learning] [DG: User Experience] Leading Design

Thu Dec 3 10:49:12 PST 2009

Hi Clay,
As you know, this fall, Stanford embarked on the learning activities investigation with 8 other schools it was because we were concerned about two things—1) how learning activities, especially problem sets and tests, were created, taken and evaluated 2) identifying commonalities between how various types of activities (including papers, projects, and posts) were assigned by instructors and how activities and feedback was received  by students. Part 2 was important because we wanted to insure that instructors and students no longer had to go to 2-3 different pages depending on the type of activity they were working with. 

Thus our scope was widened to all "learning activities"--It was not clear who would build that framework or when, such as a  unified dashboard view for instructors and students, but we wanted to help inform such a united framework that cut across "tool silos" before we designed and developed problem sets and tests.

In the meantime, Georgia Tech and Cambridge, along with the Sakai Foundation, hired Sam to design a simple course template in preparation for their adoption of Sakai 3 next summer. I knew this included syllabus building and viewing, but I'll admit, that until Clay mentioned the PDF posted on his blog at the t&l call yesterday, I was not aware that it would also include electronic submission and evaluation of assignments, specifically file uploads of papers (had not followed the link from his email before thanksgiving to http://sakaipm.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/leading-design/). 

Yesterday, I reviewed Sam's work with much interest. As we are nearing the end of the learning activities interviews, I am happy to see that these sketches already address some major things we've been hearing.

I am hoping that our findings will be useful, both in giving supporting to design decisions as well as in suggesting adjustments. It will certainly  be useful helping to map out future elaboration that might be required for assigning other types of activities. After our check in yesterday, we know we have 21 interviews from 7 schools (Texas, Berkeley, Michigan, Indiana, Virginia Tech, Wyoming, and Stanford) and I believe there will be more if Mt. Holyoke and Marist decide to proceed. Two of the schools provided 6 interviews about instructors who had their students turning in written work. We have 13 interviews about problem sets or quizzes. We also have 7 instructors who described at least 4 additional types of activities. The four student interviews we have give some additional insight.

Our original plan was to produce a write up, including personas and major themes, by the end of January. However, I did want to check in to see if there were other things we might do in light of Sam's work. Many have been asking if we were contributing to the spreadsheet and if this is continuing to drive his work, it might be worth it, but perhaps direct feedback on the design would be more useful at this stage.

Best,
Keli Amann
User Experience Specialist
Academic Computing, Stanford University

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Goodrum" <davidgoodrum at rocketmail.com>
To: adevans at vt.edu, "Sakai UX" <sakai-ux at collab.sakaiproject.org>, "pedagogy Learning" <pedagogy at collab.sakaiproject.org>, portfolio at collab.sakaiproject.org
Sent: Tuesday, December 1, 2009 7:13:17 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Re: [DG: User Experience] [DG: Teaching & Learning] Leading Design

Hi Amber, 

I'm encouraged to hear that some of what you have found in your contextual inquiry is already hinted at in the Learning Capabilities spreadsheet. It makes me more optimistic that these different kinds of efforts will dovetail and build on each other as the community pushes forward towards a deep understanding of how Sakai 3 needs to support teaching and learning. Any of the themes and activity flows emerging in the spreadsheet would benefit from the kind of deeper understanding that comes from contextual inquiry. I'm anxiously looking forward to the sharing that Keli Amann in a recent message said would happen by the end of January. Recently, Janice Smith has added concepts to the spreadsheet that reflect work the Portfolio community has done. There were hints in the spreadsheet already about portfolio-like capabilities, but the spreadsheet is much improved by the thorough treatment of these ideas directly from the Portfolio community. I think the rewards for finding and maintaining these broad connections between various teaching and learning concepts will be a rich set of Sakai 3 services available anywhere in the system and not just tied to specific tools or views. 

Regards - David Goodrum 

Director, Academic and Faculty Services 
Learning Technologies 
University Information Technology Services 
Indiana University 

From: Amber D. Evans <adevans at vt.edu> 
To: Sakai UX <sakai-ux at collab.sakaiproject.org> 
Sent: Mon, November 30, 2009 3:11:22 PM 
Subject: Re: [DG: User Experience] [DG: Teaching & Learning] Leading Design 

Clay, 

(I'm reposting this to the larger Sakai community at your request.) 

I hope that I and my group are not tragically late to this game, as we've been working with Stanford on collecting interviews as part of their Assignments and Test & Quizzes Contextual Inquiry/Fluid research design. My 3 person team and I will be spending much of today and Tuesday compiling our user persona notes form those interviews. I know that many other schools are also contributing to the Stanford UX project and may have similar questions or capability to contribute to the larger T&L Sakai 3.0 capabilities. Once done, my team and I would like to share resulting composite persona info with your group (and we have already started adding a little bit to the Google document ). 

We just wanted to make sure that we didn't entirely miss the boat on this one, since the timeline is not entirely clear as to when this kind of user data will no longer be needed ... as your blog posting indicates , it's a constant on-going project, but I also recognize that at some point things have to be settled in order to move forward. We have noticed that much of what we could contribute has already been identified in the list, and only a few more ideas of value may be added (from us). If you could let me know how my colleagues and I can best make learning capabilities contributions (or other things) at this stage, it would be appreciated. Thanks! 

Sincerely, 
Amber D. Evans 

Training and Documentation Coordinator, Online Course Systems (OCS) 
= = = 
Learning Technologies, Virginia Tech, 1220B Torgersen Hall (0292), Blacksburg, VA 24061 
540.231.8053 | adevans at vt.edu | http://amsdiane.blogspot.com/ 
= = = 
"Non scholae sed vitae discimus" ("We learn not for school but for life") -Seneca 

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 7:03 PM, David Goodrum < davidgoodrum at rocketmail.com > wrote: 

It's been interesting to see the level of collaboration the document has seen and how it has evolved because of that collaboration. 

According to Google docs, there's been at least 15 collaborators on the document... likely more, since no login is required to edit it -- it is a totally open brainstorming document right now. 

The spreadsheet is certainly not exhaustive nor complete, nor is that the intent for this phase. It currently does not necessarily reflect the best capabilities of Sakai 2.x; it does not reflect what all is missing or frustrating about Sakai 2.x; it does not reflect all of what Sakai 3 should aspire to; it doesn't even fully represent what teaching and learning goals should be supported in Sakai 3. So what's the point? 

With 60+ rows right now, it begins to represent a fair cross section of many ambitions Sakai 3 perhaps ought to have in the teaching and learning space. 

And it attempts to show how different levels of complexity and functional capabilities both link together and link back to a basic teaching and learning goal, hopefully expressed in everyday language. 

Perhaps a bad analogy for the document would be the recent cell coverage maps... Ideally, our teaching and learning map would look like Verizon's 3G map... with nearly the whole map filled in. This brainstorming document today is more like the AT&T 3G coverage map: a lot of white space still to be filled in, but there is coverage of many core areas and outlines of many others. 

For now it's a place to play out some ideas. 

Got a teaching and learning idea? Something instructors want their students to do? Something students wish instructors would do? Something that develops collaboration and cooperation among students, encourages active learning, gives prompt feedback, emphasizes time on task, communicates high expectations, or respects diverse talents and ways of learning? Then add it to the brainstorm. 

- David 

From: Clay Fenlason < clay.fenlason at et.gatech.edu > 
To: Sakai UX < sakai-ux at collab.sakaiproject.org >; pedagogy Learning < pedagogy at collab.sakaiproject.org > 
Sent: Wed, November 18, 2009 7:28:43 PM 
Subject: [DG: User Experience] Leading Design 

In recent weeks I've been trying to promote the maturation of the 
learning capabilities spreadsheet [1] that David Goodrum has 
championed. At the same time I've heard concerns that it might come to 
naught or not be listened to. Just a couple days ago Josh Baron was 
asking me when and how I thought the spreadsheet might actually be 
used to inform the design. I told him, "It's happening right now." I'm 
not sure he believed me, so I made a blog post with evidence: 
http://sakaipm.wordpress.com 

~Clay 

[1] https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlfbHxo2qpHEdHRuSnowVGMwWE9HY1MtVjFpY1dtS0E&hl=en 
_______________________________________________ 
sakai-ux mailing list 
sakai-ux at collab.sakaiproject.org 
http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/sakai-ux 

TO UNSUBSCRIBE: send email to sakai-ux-unsubscribe at collab.sakaiproject.org with a subject of "unsubscribe" 

_______________________________________________ 
pedagogy mailing list 
pedagogy at collab.sakaiproject.org 
http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/pedagogy 

TO UNSUBSCRIBE: send email to pedagogy-unsubscribe at collab.sakaiproject.org with a subject of "unsubscribe" 

_______________________________________________
sakai-ux mailing list
sakai-ux at collab.sakaiproject.org
http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/sakai-ux

TO UNSUBSCRIBE: send email to sakai-ux-unsubscribe at collab.sakaiproject.org with a subject of "unsubscribe"