EdTechLand
This is a list of notes and links for me to wrap my head around a bunch of different web technologies and techniques.
Big Picture thinking
An online learning system that doesn’t suck. I don’t like virtual classrooms, because what’s a classroom? I don’t like the term Learning Management System because it can’t actually manage the learning, it just organizes stuff and has a gradebook.
My ideas:
- workspace or studio space, a digital atelier and laboratory.
- communication space, the call center/ conference room/ tutoring booth and lecture hall.
- documents, media, research archives - a place for the stuff that doesn’t live out there.
What this really means is a set of workflows and tools within the workflow.
- instruction workflow
- communication space (for everyone not just instructor to students)
- research workflow, finding information and answers.
Most current instruction is video tutorials How to take that and add better learning goals How to develop better plain rubrics of expectations A more organic system of assessments that make it easier for people to self-assess along with you.
Ever since I got involved in distance education/e-learning I have always felt like the whole LMS thing was making a whale stand like an elephant. As a designer I never understood why you can’t aggregate tools together and make a dedicated LMS from them. I also think, libraries suffer the same problem. So during our current pandemic I was going back to my research and re-connecting with the work of people I admired.
EdTech Posse was an amazing podcast for me. It long since faded into the lost web. But you can find bits and crumbs.
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Stephen Downes a big reason for this page is I can’t keep up with his newsletter!
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Leveraging APIs at Duke Univ.
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Kits at Duke Univ.
Where this gets interesting is the work of Bryan Ollendyke at Penn State. Who I just discovered. He is part of the group making HAX.
Much of what makes HAX tick is Web Components.
E-Learning things (EdTech focus)
- learning locker some form of document system open source
- Book press for Wordpress
- Pressbooks book system
Code stuff for web (General)
- Course on APIs need to get my head around the whole api thing.
- Writing a text adventure game in node.js has 3 parts
Things you could teach with but aren’t branded that way
- Backdrop CMS yet another cms
- Grav CMS its just keeps creeping back on my radar so I need to play.