The Killer EdApp
Feb 24th, 2007 • Categories: Educational
This Wednesday (Feb. 28th, 2007), I’ll be talking with Paul Allison and others on TeachersTeachingTeachers.org about various CMS (Community Management System) solutions for schools. Specifically, I’ll be talking about Joomla.
I’ve written some notes on Joomla before, and have been talking to a few teachers in other districts about its potential for the classroom. For me, Joomla (along with WikiSpaces and ELGGSpaces) delivers much of what I’m looking for, but it’s not perfect.
What I’m more excited about is finding some way to create a “killer educational application” that combines all the best, relevant features from Joomla, Moodle, ELGGSpaces, Explode, Drupal, WordPress MU and so on into a software solution that allows students and teachers to take full advantage of “web 2.0″ tools, but within a controlled, leveled, safe environment. (A balance between “walled garden”–which provides safety–and true openness–which takes greatest advantage of being online–would have to be controlled on a user-by-user, section-by-section, item-by-item basis. This is the only compromise I can think of that could do both, and seems in line with Vicki Davis’s proposal of on-the-fly filtration.)
The “product” would be open-source software, so others could still customize it to their liking. Importantly though, it would be software, so that schools can install it on their servers and maintain control of the content.
I’m drafting up some ideas of what this solution would look like. I don’t have the skills or the time to create it, though. But I worry/wonder …
Is is worth trying to do this? Would we just be “reinventing” what other companies (Google, Think.com, tteach, etc.) are starting to do? Is this issue already a dead horse (something Stephen Downes would shoot down in a matter of words)? I know that others (like Miguel Guhlin and Chris Lehmann) have written about similar issues, but has there been any real progress along these specific lines somewhere? And if it is a good idea worth doing, who would be able and willing to do it?
Here are my thoughts [update-this list moved from my wiki to this post]
- Safety & Openness -Admins need to be able to set access levels for users, items, and sections that other users cannot override. This allows for a leveled approach to safety and strikes a balance between safe-but-disconnected and open-but-unprotected.
- Administrative Control
- SuperAdmins should be able to control all aspects of the site and view the history of all site activity
- SuperAdmins should be able to decide which components (blog, calendar, forum, etc.) are available for each user
- Admins can give parents “read-only” privileges or select “write” privileges by component/section
- Community
- Users should be able to find all other users [like most social networks]
- Users should be able to set privacy levels for every item (private, connections, registered, public) [like ELGG]
- Users should be able to create their own groups (for projects, etc.) [like ELGG] and each group should be listed in a centralized “groups” page.
- Groups
- Users should be able to create their own groups (for projects, etc.) [like ELGG]
- Groups can be set to “open, request, or invitation only”
- Each group should be listed in a centralized “groups” page (along with whether or not the group is “open”)
- Groups should be created using user fields as a starting point (i.e., all users in “English 10 - Hoefler” or all users reading “The Great Gatsby”)
- Groups should be disposable … easily created and removed
- User Space - Users should have their own customizable space that goes beyond a static profile. In this space, they should be able to collect all their work on the site (posts, comments, forum entries, wiki changes, rss feeds, etc.) as well as develop an e-portfolio and build pages that display and discuss some of their best work … a “showcase” space.
- Assignments
- Teachers can post assignments that aggregate to students based on class enrollment [like Moodle]
- Assignments appear on teacher/student calendars [like Moodle]
- Students can discuss each assignment (through comments like a blog post), and all discussions are aggregated by class (creating an immediate “forum” around each assignment)
- Aggregating
- Taking a cue from Yahoo’s Pipes and extending it: all items are easily tagged with user, class, and assignment information, which is then aggregated and redistributed through discussion forums, groups, and wiki pages. This way, all information related to a given item can be easily found anywhere on the site.
- All site activity relevant to a user (by group, grade-level, class, etc.) is automatically aggregated on the user’s profile page [like FaceBook's "News Feed"]
- Off-site RSS feeds can be turned on or off for each section and tag, controlled by SuperAdmin
- Blogs
- Each user should have an individual blog, and others should be able to subscribe to the blog, the comments, or both.
- All blogs should be able to be grouped by class.
- All blog entries should be listed together on the main blog page, by category/class, or by tag
- Wiki - a working wiki, with wysiwyg and media/file uploads that are easy and that can be displayed in various ways
- Forum - a discussion forum that links to student profiles with entries that can be tagged
- Messaging
- Users should be able to send private messages on the site, emails through the site, or text messages through the site
- Users should be able to send to groups and to create their own groups (withouth having to work through the “groups” section)
- Chat - On-site chat and IM capabilities … and all correspondence should be archived
- Integrated tagging - all content should be “taggable” and then viewed in a tag cloud, clicked-through, or searched
- Integrated search - all aspects of the site should be searchable, with advanced searching that lets you choose which sections will be searched
Leave your thoughts in the comments section. If you have specific ideas about what the product should look like. If I’m crazy or already behind-the-times, let me know. If you think it’s a good idea, spread the word … collective wisdom and effort is better than scattered.
Tags: blog, cms, cooltool, forum, privacy, safety, socialnetwork, technology, wiki
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Hi Eric,
Just wanted to add some thoughts here. When I read Chris’ post initially a while ago, I was quietly hoping that it would spur some developer to jump forward and crown himself or herself as the owner of the killerapp. Unfortunately, that did not happen, and I am looking for the same thing that all of you are looking for: the perfect balance between transparency and safety.
The powers that be in my district are looking very closely at Sakai, more for its content sharing capabilities with major universities, but it exists as an open source platform that is somewhat customizable for adding modules as needed. I haven’t jumped in and played around with it yet, but I am anticipating doing that shortly.
I don’t think we are wasting our time here contemplating what we need to create. Every school system worth their salt in the next few years will be creating something to suit their specific needs, and eschewing this “one-size-fits-all” system. Just as we intend to try to match content with individual learning style and motivation through Web 2.0, so too should schools be using open-source opportunities to create their own apps to cater to changing student needs.
Look forward to interacting with you on ReadingPros.
Just in response to Patrick… Bill Fitzgerald over at OpenAcademic is very close to proclaiming himself that developer. Check him out. I put a TON of faith in his ability to get this done.
Hi Eric
I would love to keep tabs on the development of this EdApp, as I can see many uses in many classrooms for what you are envisioning. Thanks to Chris for pointing the wazy to OpenAcademic. I will check it out. I think you are correct in saying that all of these applications have something to offer us teachers, but navigating through it all is tricky for many people.
I may try to drop in on Teachers Teaching Teachers, if I can, Eric.
Peace,
Kevin
We have been working on an open source platform that allows to create application with no coding (think salesforce.com).We just integrated it with Google Apps and are going into beta. have a look if you are interested. http://www.applicationexchange.com.
Thanks to everyone for the comments so far. Good to know I’m not completely off-base here.
Chris, I spent more time over at OpenAcademic. Seems like there’s still a long way to go yet, but from what Bill has posted there, it does look promising. Do you know Bill personally? Do you think he would want interested educators creating a “wish/suggestion list” on their wiki? (I sent an email volunteering whatever help I can offer.)
For those interested, check out these pages on OpenAcademic:
- ethos: seems on target to me
- technology: reads much like my own wish list, but there aren’t enough details yet for me to be sure
- news blog: to keep tabs on things
- wiki: they set up a wiki to gather help/input from others! I’ll be watching the “roadmap” closely.
Hello, Eric,
I would definitely be interested in seeing educators posting a wish list — so much so, that I just created the page
http://wiki.openacademic.org/index.php/Wish_List
Please go in and edit away!
RE: “Seems like there’s still a long way to go yet, but from what Bill has posted there, it does look promising.”
Yes, and thanks.
We have been moving fairly deliberately, and learning from the process. We design iteratively, and we are also doing the bulk of our development on our time, at our expense. We have been extremely fortunate to do work for some great people, and this client work helps move us along, but, for all the obvious reasons, client work takes a priority over our internal development roadmap.
I have also been working more and blogging less over the last few months — I don’t particularly like this tradeoff, as it means that our development is not as transparent as I want, but there are days (weeks?) when I’ve been faced with the choice of talking about what we want to do, or *doing* what we want to do, and I’ve chosen to focus on getting things done.
Cheers,
Bill
To find the product you’re looking for you will need to look beyond the world of the educational bloggers you have mentioned, since most of them do not program and hence while they may speculate are not and will not be the source of any educational application.
OpenAcademic strikes me as Yet Another Academic Portal. Merely combining Drupal and Moodle and the like together won’t produce the ultimate educational application. It just produces another content management system. This current effort is, like the recent wave of bloggers, more school centered and teacher centred. But I think we’ve been pretty much through the CMS approach, through and through.
My own feeling is that the educational application you are looking for is currently being developed under the heading of the ‘Personal Learning Environment’. Some prototypes (eg., ‘Trax’, I think it’s called) have already been developed; you can find them by Googling for ‘PLE’. Also, George Siemens recently hosted a ‘Personal Learning Environments’ conference in Winnipeg. Also in the running is ELGG’s new application, Explode!, which is *very* embryonic right now, but which has a basic platform in place.
Thanks, Bill, for the open invitation. I agree that, if forced to choose, it’s better to “do” than to “talk about doing.” I’ll be looking forward to learning more about your project.
Thanks Stephen. It’s clear from following your blog and some of your presentations that you are much more knowledgeable about these things than I am. I appreciate the information.
Here are some resources based on Stephen’s suggestions:
- George Siemens
- The “PLE” blog
- The PLE symposium at the University of Manitoba (has notes, slideshows, webcasts, etc.)
- A “Personal Learning Environments” wiki I found that contains helpful information and a list of possible solutions (including blog-based and ePortfolio-based approaches, and lists OpenAcademic as a project “to watch”)
- I couldn’t find “Trax” … anyone know? I did find Plex, though.
Hello, Stephen,
Some very interesting, but entirely inaccurate, comments.
OA is about more than “merely combining Drupal and Moodle” — your impression that OA is school centered is equally misguided — OA is about meeting the changing needs of students, teachers, and administrators — given the current state of technology, we are past the point where the needs of one set of stakeholders must trump that of the others.
Within any system (or even between systems) an individual can change their role within the system depending on their context (ie, an administrator in one context can/should/must be a learner in another).
The current PLE model is inherently flawed — PLE’s cover a part of the picture, but, without giving a nod to the social aspect of learning (in addition to the personal aspects of learning), the PLE runs the risk of isolating learners at the very point where connections can be made to facilitate learning.
If you would like to learn more about what OA is, and about what OA isn’t, feel free to get in touch.
If you’re following this discussion, I wanted to let you know that Bill Fitzgerald posted a blog entry at OA that discusses further what OA is and isn’t. I like what he has to say about learning, schools, and technology, and he makes some important distinctions. Definitely worth the read.
Plex. That’s what I meant by ‘Trax’.
Don’t forget a 3-D virtual environment. That is absolutely essential and is needed in education. Second life is not a viable alternative for educators for multiple reasons (see my upcoming post). This could be exciting!
Hello Everyone,
This is Zee from tteach.com.
Just a quick message to let you all know that we’re listening to every word - and are really really REALLY going to every extent to make tteach your “Killer EdApp”.
We’ll be releasing the feature list in two weeks time, which I am certain (once you see) you will be very excited about. The public beta will be released shortly after.
However, once we’ve launched - we need your thoughts on where we’re going wrong & where we’re going right and any other ideas you may have to improve the site. What I can promise you is that as long as you keep telling us, we’ll listen & find a way to make it happen.
I can’t tell you how excited we are…Here’s to the future of online education.
Cheers.
I know I’m late to the game as a commenter — but this is an interesting discussion. Why do we need one killer ap? We need lots of them. As a language arts teacher, I don’t look to get every student interested in the same book — I look for books and texts that will work for the students. While there’re plenty of improvements, and plenty of good people, working to create the right tools, I don’t want to be forced into the one tool that a future teacher or administrator might find is the best. For example — I don’t want an 3-D environment right now — I’ve already got a great one in my classroom.
I want flexibility. I want choice. I don’t want a killer app. I want lots of them.
This is a good point, Bud. Thanks for reminding us about this.
It’s one reason why the app I would want would be 1) open source, 2) customizable, and 3) allow admins to turn on or off various options.
But of course, monopolies are bad for everyone but the monopolizer. I’d be happy with lots of “killer apps.” So far, though, I haven’t even found one that does everything I’m looking for.
But I’m getting more and more hopeful …
I’ll echo Bud’s statement, about having a great 3D environment in the classroom. I’ve been using Drupal with my students now for about a year. It’s not “killer” but it does what I need it to and more importantly, it seems to work for the kids. I think we run into problems when we start talking about Education (capital E) as a monolithic enterprise. There are many locations, levels, purposes, personalities, etc. involved in teaching/learning environments. Flexibility is key. Drupal’s modular make-up lends itself to customization. Though, as Stephen pointed out in his blog, poor documentation is a problem. So….if there ever is such a thing as a “killer application,” I would expect it to be highly customizable.
Eric says:
“This is a good point, Bud. Thanks for reminding us about this.”
I agree. Thanks Bud.
“It’s one reason why the app I would want would be 1) open source,”
I know this may sound crazy, but this is not enough. It must be free (as in speech) software. An open source application may be subjected to restriction depending upon the architecture of the system as a whole. This is a critical difference and it is imperative that an application like this be free. This is the crux. Do you see why? The difference between “open” and “free” software is subtle and even irrelevant in some situations. But in other contexts, it is absolutely crucial. We’re talking about software that communities will use to communicate with each other both privately and publicly. It must be free.
“2) customizable,”
Yes, which is a given if the software is free (as in speech).
“3) allow admins to turn on or off various options.”
Yes, again a given if the environment is free (as in speech). If it is not, then who is “the admin”?
We have been working on a product called eduslide for the last year, and we will be launching it as open source in July 2008. It is an LCMS as moodle is, but concentrates more on the creation side. We’ve also created a lot of free content for school subjects, covering mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, geography etc, as well as offering the first 3 chapters of VTC IT courses (about 12,000 screencasts).
I’d be interested in constructive feedback so we can make the product better.