[IAEP] Where should we put Lesson Plans? Currwiki?

[Caroline Meeks]

Hi Chris,
I think the right answer is to put our materials on both your system and
Curriki for now and hopefully an automated interoperable system will emerge.

I am very interested in collaborating with OLE and in making materials
accessible to schools without internet access. Please talk more about how
your system supports these environments.  I have not yet reached out to the
Curriki people to try to create a partnership.  Are you in communication
with them?

For the Moodle advocates. I am a big Moodle fan. But I don't think its our
right now solution for the work we are talking about doing.


   1. Our target, elementary school teachers are not currently using either
   Moodle or Sugar, adding both at once makes the learning curve even harder.
   2. We are focusing on lesson plans in the 1 hour and even 20-minute
   groupwork time frames.  Moodle is more focused on longer time frames.
   3. We are focusing on what the teacher will do and what the class will do
   both online and offline during the lesson as well as learning goals,
   standards, help for the teacher in differentiating the lesson etc.  Think
   the teachers guide for the text book. Moodle is more focused on what the
   student is doing online. Its not a very natural fit.
   4. Moodle has tremendous promise in terms of reducing teacher workload.
    Here is an example of what I hope that in the future Moodle will be able
   to:
      1. Provide a link that students click and they open a Write document
      that is a template/scaffolding for a specific assignment, say writing a
      scientific argument.
      2. When the document is saved it is automatically turned in as
      Homework in Moodle allowing the teacher to review and comment on the
      document from anywhere, even on days when the class does not see
the science
      teacher.

however, these features aren't there yet. Once they are there will be a
large payoff for teachers to learn Moodle.  However, I still see Moodle as
just one format teachers will use. Other lessons and other teachers and
other contexts may still want to print out a pdf.  Other times a teacher may
just be browsing for a sample lesson to be used as inspiration to create a
quite different lesson.

Thanks,
Caroline

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 12:57 PM, Chris Rowe <chris at ole.org> wrote:

> Caroline,
>
> We at Open Learning Exchange (OLE) have been working towards a solution for
> this over the past 2 years and have a working prototype with the most basic
> functionality we think is needed. You are welcome to try it out at
> library.ole.org
>
> There are several sites on the web that are trying to create a place for
> curriculum to be shared but none of them that I know of are addressing the
> needs of developing countries. We have done a lot of work to address the
> diverse needs of countries with limited internet access and feel we have a
> solution that will be very powerful in the near future.
>
> We are working with our centers around the world to identify the key
> success factors in making a Global Learning Library as well as several
> partners like the Siyavula project in South Africa and Connexions at Rice
> University to leverage existing work done in this area.
>
> In addition, we have begun talks with Sugarlabs to use our library as a
> repository of educational materials that incorporate sugar activities. It
> would be very helpful for us to get your feedback on what we have and to
> work with you on integrating it with your work and the work of the Sugarlabs
> community.
>
> Some of my thoughts on other solutions.
>
> Sugarlabs wiki: There is too much other content on the sugarlabs wiki that
> is not relevant to teachers. Just like activities.sugarlabs.org is a place
> to find and download activities I think we need a place designed
> specifically for curriculum materials.
>
> Moodle: Moodle is a great tool for creating structured, interactive lesson
> plans and for deploying them in classrooms but it is not designed as a
> library or repository of materials. Our plan is to start by allowing people
> to create Moodle courses and share them on our library for others to
> download and use on their own Moodle servers. We are also working with a
> developer to integrate work he has done on Moodle import/export into our
> library in the future.
>
> Curriki: Curriki is the closest thing to what we think is needed but it
> lacks the ability to be deployed on a country by country basis. We feel
> strongly that a learning library needs to be customizable for each country,
> each school and even each student.
>
> Curriculum alignment: There are many features that we we feel are an
> integral part of making a library of curriculum materials successful that we
> have not implemented in our library yet. Curriculum alignment is at the top
> of that list. Because of the complexity of many of the worlds curriculum
> standards we want to make sure we do not overload teachers with too much
> information.
>
> Chris
>
> Chris Rowe, CTO
> Open Learning Exchange
> +1 (512) 553-0852 | skype: eworsirhc
> http://ole.org
> Sent from Austin, TX, United States
>



-- 
Caroline Meeks
Solution Grove
Caroline at SolutionGrove.com

617-500-3488 - Office
505-213-3268 - Fax
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