[DG: Teaching & Learning] Basic screen casts on how to use Sakai

[Sean Keesler]

I'm on a screencast kick. Well...more like a screencast search kick.

For those that don't know, I've been maintaining the sakaiproject.org
site for a month and answering general questions from new folks that
come to the sakaiproject.org web site. I was just asked a pretty basic
question that went something like:

"I just got Sakai installed on my machine and I logged in as the admin
user. Now what?"

I pointed him to confluence, Sakai Help and the reference docs
included with Sakai, but I really wanted to be able to point him to a
60-90 second screencast that showed how to add users, create a course
site and add some tools (the down and dirty basics) but I don't see
any of them out there. I googled for "Sakai Worksite Setup" videos and
saw my own setup for a portfolio site. Not exactly what I wanted!

I have a gut feeling that similar videos for setting up a gradebook,
creating and grading assignments and delivering a test (and probably a
million more) would be sweet little nuggets to highlight some Sakai
benefits for the new user or someone who is Sakai-curious. It's about
time our web site had it!

I could envision a section of the site about "the basics"
(assignments, tests and quizzes, gradebooks and discussion tools) and
a section for "advanced" uses (wikis, portfolios, blogs, podcasts,
etc.)

While the online text help is quite extensive and of high quality, I
believe that it may not be the best way to share that knowledge with
the general public.
I'm sure that the community has made some of this material. If we
haven't, I'd like to get some folks together that share some energy
around it and coordinate a new section of the site all about that. I'd
be happy to do it online or at the conference.


Sean Keesler
130 Academy Street
Manlius, NY 13104
315-682-0830
sean.keesler at threecanoes.com