KP needs a new website

Thoughts on ICT based on http://www.pataleta.net/kaos_dev/

Contents

  1. KP needs a new website
    1. Rationale
      1. Who is this website for??
      2. What has ICT to do with the school’s educational approach?
    2. Internal chaos
      1. Presentation
        1. Tutors
        2. Students
      2. Communication
        1. Tutors
        2. Students
      3. Assessment
        1. Tutors
        2. Students
      4. Management
        1. Tutors
        2. Students
    3. Spread the chaos
      1. Match maker
      2. Events
      3. News
      4. People
        1. Group listing
        2. Individual portfolio
      5. Skills pool
    4. Final thoughts

Rationale

Here is compilation of our thoughts regarding the redesign of the website (finally!!), and my views on how the school could benefit from a more effective use of ICT and multimedia based technologies to support teaching, learning and collaborative working.

My ideas come from the conviction that personal computing is no longer something done to accomplish something else more efficiently, but rather a part of everyday life, even critical to communication and social interaction.

Who is this website for??

The firs thing we need to think about is who is going to be using this website, I have found 6 general categories:

Hi Zulmita, what about potential new students? Perhaps they should get their own category? I dont know.. just a suggestion:)! See you tomorrow! Stine

What has ICT to do with the school’s educational approach?

In the current state of affairs our use of ICT in relation to our education is restricted to not much more than email communication, web surfing, annoying use of instant messenger services during lectures and to help some of us look cool and trendy.

Initiatives like the wiki pages are beginning to change the picture, but I believe it is the right time for the school to do much more than that.

The use of internet tools for educational purposes has been specially effective in educational contexts which value self-direction, independent learning, prior learning and practical application of skills and concepts; this combined with the potentials of the internet as a tool for social connectivity constitute the frameset for my initial ideas, (which I hope can be developed, challenged and improved with the help of the school community).

Internal chaos

Bassically an online application that provides tutors and students with new tools for interaction and collaborative working in the areas of:

Presentation:

Communication:

Assessment

Management

The main use of the application for tutors will be to prepare and manage content and course activities, while students will use it mainly to personalize content and to work collaboratively.

There are tools like this that can be bought, such as: WebCT but we could look into using open source tools and developing our own KP online learning tool.

Presentation

Tutors

A syllabus template can be developed with the help of the tutors and they could have access to an admin interface where they can enter the information as the course develops.

There should also be a section for course selected resources such as course assignments, a pool of relevant links and lecture's presentation files.

Tutors can publish streaming audio or streaming video from lectures.

the content could be "tagged" under different categories, such as date, topic, lecturer etc.

Students

For the students to have access to their week by week syllabus and other course related written documents.

It could be interesting to have a search facility based on categories, e.g. search for lectures by an specific teacher, or search for bibliography, in this way the students can have the information displayed based on what is more relevant to them.

There could be an area here where students can collaborate in the creation of content, for example book rating in the bibliography section, or contributing with relevant links

Communication

Online tools for synchronous (same time-different place) and asynchronous (different time-different place) one to one, one to many and many to many communication. This will be a very important area for the development of an online community, the wiki pages could be part of it.

Distance learning modules – possibility to share information with the other schools. (the school could design distance learning collaborative modules as part of the curriculum, encouraging students to use technology to facilitate the construction of non-geographical networks.

Being text based, people tend to pay more attention to the content, not the person (which can make participation equal for everyone). There is possibility for reflection (one thinks more before writing than before speaking), it encourages analytical thinking and interactions can be revised, archived and retrieved. Hypertext can help structure and interconnect ideas.

Read more on computer conferencing in education.

Tutors

Create group an private chat rooms and discussion rooms.

Design distance learning assignments that can for example be carried out in collaboration with other kaos teams in other countries.

Students

Participate in assignments set by tutors and work collaboratively in the development of projects without geographical constrains; using tools such as blogs, forums, etc.

Create discussion rooms for course related topics (e.g course literature, lectures).

Develop content for the wiki pages.

Assessment

Tutors

Can keep track of student's participation (in discussion rooms for example) and can give written feedback.

Students

Can use blogs for reflective writing, with the advantage of making the logs searchable and easy to archive. Images, animations and other media can also be used, as well as hypertext (which can be a good tool for idea connection). Studens can customize the look and feel of their blogs.

Can publish their projects to share them with the class and can recieve written feedback from tutors and peers.

Can give feedback to tutors, students and lecturers.

Management

Initially the use of a simple calendar could be very beneficial, but it would be interesting to look into some basic project management software, where students can generate and keep track of project schedules, participants, roles, tasks, milestones etc. like a centralized area to help students manage school projects.

Tutors

Post deadlines and important dates in a global calender

Students

Can add their own personal entries to the calender

Using an online project management application students could organize schedules, archive and publish documents. Assign and keep track of tasks and roles...

calendar_01

Spread the chaos

This section consists of ideas on how to use the internet to bring the kaospilot outside the classroom. Our web presence should be dynamic and adaptive, it is not just a way for people to access information, but ideally it should allow people to be part of the kaospilot experience, to participate, to contribute, to use us and let us use them.

Match maker

This idea came from the k10k website, although conceptually is very similar to the "project market place in the wiki pages". The idea is for people to post their projects based on certain criteria, inviting other people to participate. Let's just see how the k10k one works:

  1. Description and Categories

    • m_maker_01 m_maker_02

    • The projects are organized under different categories, our categories would obviously be different.
  2. See projects

    • m_maker_03

  3. Select project

    • m_maker_04

  4. Create project

    • m_maker_05

    • A simple form to create a new project. There are rules for the use of the match maker, and the administrator can delete projects if they don't comply with the rules.

Events

I will use the k10k site again to ilustrate the idea, it is basically an area where people can get and post information about events (workshops, talks, conferences...)

  1. Event list

    • event_01

  2. Event Calendar and Event details

    • event_02

  3. Submit an event

    • event_03

News

A database of news, searchable by date, categories or key words. People can submit their articles to be approved and published. let's see a few examples:

  1. K10K
  2. Pixel surgeon
  3. Pixel surgeon submit

    • news_03

    • News submitted to a person in a panel of editors.

People

How do people outside the school see us? how do others know what we are good at? I suggest a concise good looking portfolio page for students, alumni and staff. The information could be organized under the following headings:

There is a good example at the Interaction Design Ivrea

Group listing

portfolio_01

Individual portfolio

portfolio_02

Skills pool

A database of skills organized by categories. There is a similar online initiative created by the lynfabrikken guys.

Final thoughts

Additionally, the current content of the site should be re-evaluated to decide what of it should stay and in what format, but maybe we could do that as a team (the people who are going to be involved in the re-design of the site). A list of key concepts to keep in mind when doing this are:

Homebase: ItZulmaThoughts (last edited 2005-11-12 10:52:20 by StineEvjen)