[Building Sakai] Dialogic learning environment for Sakai

Mon Feb 15 06:59:13 PST 2010

Hi Mark,

I'm going to bang my own, shared drum here. Have you had a look at YAFT 
in contrib? It's threaded, minimalistic and very much liked here at 
Lancaster.

Cheers,

Adrian.

Mark Smith wrote:
> Dear Sakai developers community,
>  
> We are working on a grant proposal and we need your help in assessing
> programming work for this project (also, if we get the grant we might need
> your help in finding people who can work on this project). Over the past 14
> years (since 1996, first using Microsoft FrontPage), we have been working to
> build and improve upon a web-based environment which supports dialogic
> pedagogy and its emergent pedagogical ecology in our classes at the
> University of Delaware School of Education. This class web environment has
> been designed to support a learning ecology of dialogue.  In our pedagogical
> judgment, we have found that web platforms designed and commonly used for
> education seem to build monologic educational ecologies, in which class web
> discussions focus on replies to singular topics (like in a FAQ forum), and
> the pedagogical design emphasizes instructor control and surveillance of
> students' assignments and discussions. In contrast, we have designed a class
> web environment that supports a different educational ecology focusing on
> the participants' messy exploration of ideas generated by the community of
> learners (this "messiness" embedded in our web design is deliberate as we do
> not wish to unilaterally organize or control the responsive discourse which
> emerges in the discussion). In this classroom community of learners, all
> participants, including the instructor, have equal rights for defining and
> negotiating the theme of communal discourse. 
>
> However, we feel that our current web platform has great technological
> limitations. Most importantly, it is built upon our clumsy integration of
> Microsoft SharePoint v.1, JavaScript, MSSQL Server 2000, and MS Access
> technology which cannot be easily shared with other instructors outside of
> our university. Furthermore, the complexity of our system has rendered it
> difficult to support for anyone other than someone well-trained in MSSQL
> Server and MS Access database systems, and takes valuable instructor time to
> maintain before and throughout the semester.
>  
> We are currently working on a grant proposal to develop (among other things)
> our dialogic class web environment on the Sakai platform and would like to
> ask the Sakai developer community questions regarding the feasibility of our
> project, as well as the overall costs and time associated with the project
> (e.g., costs for hiring developers, what types of work would be needed for
> developers to do, and so forth). Our university, the University of Delaware,
> has established Sakai as the platform for its course web environments. We
> would like to create a class web environment that supports dialogic pedagogy
> on the Sakai platform. 
>
> Conceptually, we see a class web environment supporting dialogic pedagogy as
> much more than a "dialogic tool" to be added to an existing pedagogical
> framework and structure. It is, we feel, a radical departure from existing
> educational technology and pedagogy. Although we recognize that pedagogy and
> technology provide mutual affordances for each other, we consider
> educational philosophy as the guiding principle for the pedagogical and
> technological designs for a class web environment. We do not want to sound
> arrogant, but in our view, the design of many existing class web
> environments is consciously or unconsciously guided by a conventional
> monologic educational philosophy based on "covering curriculum" unilaterally
> preset by the instructor in advance. Consequently, in the current conceptual
> language used about Sakai, each module is described as a pedagogy-free,
> self-contained tool. In contrast our approach is ecological rather than
> instrumental. For example, in a party, we wouldn't speak of a room, or a
> patio as "a tool" as much as we would consider it a space. Similarly, we
> look upon the Class Web Environment as a learning space with its own ecology
> instead of a tool. 
>  
> To better visualize what we have in mind, we have developed a web site with
> information about our grant proposal here,
> http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/diaped_CWE. We would also encourage anyone to
> inform us about any current grant opportunities and provide your feedback on
> any technological challenges we face, criticisms of our approach, and
> pedagogical design improvements, and any new exciting possibilities.
>  
> We have created a Demo site of our class web environment supporting our
> dialogic pedagogy which allows interested developers and instructors to
> visualize this web environment, http://www.web-ed.udel.edu/EDUC259.demo
> (when you get to the Demo Website, you are put in the student's role, which
> is just the tip of the iceberg of what we have designed for the course). On
> this site, please notice these key features:
>  
> 1)     Webtalk: A threaded, asynchronous discussion forum which deliberately
> has more in common with old NNTP-based newsgroups than currently popular
> topic-centered FAQ-like designs of many "Web 2.0" discussion forums, wikis
> and blogs. This design, in our experience, promotes dialogue through the
> development of a rich threaded network of ideas, in which messages
> generating RESPONSES are immediately recognizable, and responses to messages
> can change focus, sometimes 3 or more times in a thread (see
> http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/diaped_CWE and the "Webtalk" on the demo web
> for an example).
> 2)     Progress Report: A system designed for students to become responsible
> for their own progress within the class. Currently providing only daily
> updates to students, students can monitor their progress by seeing how much
> they OWE the class in terms of work, or how much they have in CREDIT. The
> report monitors the students' meeting of minimum web participation
> requirements and any COMPENSATION which they owe or have performed for the
> class. Students are expected to do a minimum amount of Webtalk postings and
> weekly "mini-projects" in a given period of time (in the demo class, per
> week). All compensations are due within 3 weeks to keep students engaged.
> See the demo web for an example.
> 3) 	Miniprojects: An assignment system which encourages everyone in the
> class - both instructors and students - to respond to each other's posted
> work. All assignments are publicly accessible.
> 4)	E-library: Unfortunately, due to copyright and privacy concerns we
> cannot show you the upper level of our class web environment. The
> "e-library" has educational resources that instructors share and collaborate
> on: databases of miniprojects, lesson plans, interesting links, videos,
> readings, surveys, course evaluations, and so on.
>
> Do you think this project is doable on the Sakai platform? If not, why not?
> If so, how much time and money might it take?
>
> We look forward to your feedback and suggestions
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Eugene Matusov, School of Education, University of Delaware
> Mark Smith, School of Education, University of Delaware
> Ana Marjanovic-Shane, Chestnut Hill College
> Katherine von Duyke, School of Education, University of Delaware
>
> Relevant publications:
> Matusov, E., Hayes, R., & Pluta, M. J. (2005). Using a discussion web to
> develop an academic community of learners. Educational Technology & Society,
> 8(2), 16-39. Available at
> http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/vita/Articles/Matusov,%20Hayes,%20Pluto,%20Usin
> g%20webs%20for%20developing%20community%20of%20learners,%20THEN,%202005.pdf
>
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>   

-- 
==================================
Adrian Fish
Software Engineer
Centre for e-Science
Bowland Tower South C Floor
Lancaster University
Lancaster
LA1 4YW
email: a.fish at lancaster.ac.uk

http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/YAFT/Yaft
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