[DG: Teaching & Learning] rethinking/simplifying learning activities

[Bruce D'Arcus]

Hi Janice,

On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 3:29 PM, janice.smith
<janice.smith at threecanoes.com> wrote:
> Hello Bruce
>
> In reference to your discussion on simplifying teaching and learning
> activities, I suggest that you take a look at the work done by Jacques
> Raynauld and his team at Montreal MATI on Open Syllabus. His presentation at
> the Sakai 2011 Conference can be found at
> https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/CONF2011/2011-06-14+Open+Syllabus+-+Building+a+coherent+learning+environment+in+Sakai+2x

Thanks. I've chatted with Jacques (the excellent manifesto on syllabi
for OAE), but hadn't seen that.

> Open Syllabus organizes the tasks of a course around an enhanced,
> interactive syllabus structure, providing a guided, virtual dashboard for
> all class resources, activities and products.

This is indeed broadly similar to what I'm suggesting. But to be
really blunt, organizing a UI around abstract terms like "context,"
"structure" and "resource" is not user-friendly.

Users don't interact with "resources": they read books, they watch
videos, they listen to music, etc.

That kind of thing.

I want a concrete, user-focused, activity UI.

So I'm imaging a UI and a model with just two things: tasks and topics
(a named list of tasks), and that components of the task model (e.g.
the verbs and the objects associated with a task) would be extensible.

Bruce