[Portfolio] Agile Design: An Ethos for Creating Learning Platforms

[Nate Angell]

Sorry for the crossposting—I thought this might be of interest to a variety of audiences.

For those of us thinking about Sakai 3 design—both the outcomes and methodology—I wanted to bring our attention to this blog post by Donald Clark that applies the agile software design methodology to the design of learning technologies, and even teaching and learning experiences themselves.

Following is Don's rewriting of the agile manifesto to apply to learning systems:

<snip>
We are uncovering better ways of designing learning processes by doing it and helping others do it.

Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Solutions that promote and speed the development of learning processes over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract and formal negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
</snip>

There's a lot more of value in Don's post that supports our existing methodologies and goals, as well as suggesting some fruitful thinking for how we are designing Sakai 3 and what we want Sakai 3 to help foster in teaching and learning.
http://bdld.blogspot.com/2009/10/agile-design-ethos-for-creating.html

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Nate Angell
Client Evangelist, rSmart
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