Transcript Document

An Instructors’ Guide to Sakai
Presenters: Dan Beeby and Jonah Bossewitch
Sakai is an open-source course management system
and a likely candidate to power CourseWorks 2.0. Sakai
is already in use at a number of institutions, and as the
community strengthens, it could provide many attractive
innovations for educators.
What Sakai is not:
Sakai: a brief history
+ Roots in OKI (from MIT)
+ Seed funded by Mellon
+ Goal to have core schools running by ‘06
+ Four ‘core’ schools & SEPP
+ Now… Sakai Foundation
Sakai Today
+ Being used at: UM, IU, Foothill-De Anza
+ Pilots at: 30+ schools (including CU)
+ Releases:
+ 1.0 (10/04), 2.0 (6/05), 2.1 (12/05), 3.0 (6/06)
+ Each release adds new/better tools
+ Future tools in new releases:
discussion board, wiki, VITAL, etc.
+ More than just software
A Community Source Project: An Ecology
software
- base system
- community tools
process
- local tools
- Sakai Foundation
- governance/board
- discussion groups
- software
- process
- community
community
- developers
- faculty &
students
- administrators
- support
Common Goals of the community:
+ Educational Culture & Values
+ Similar challenges (in higher ed)
+ Transparency
+ The players - Sakai foundation, Sakai
board, other CU groups
+
+
+
+
+
“C” is for…?
‘Course’ or ‘Content’
Management System
(CMS)
A Collection of tools
Collaboration
Communication
asd
Rules
+ Rules: ‘make’ a tool
+ Who creates,
changes, approves,
delivers?
+ How are materials
received & used?
Essence of the engagement?
+ Comprehensive collection of student work
over time = Portfolio?
+ Communication, structured or free form =
Discussion? Chat?
+ Course administration/organization = Syllabus,
calendar, announcements?
+ Collaboration, sharing work = groups? Wiki?
Tools can be “interpreted”
+ Looks same,
functionally different:
QuickT ime™ and a
T IFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see t his picture.
vs.
QuickT ime™ and a
T IFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see thi s pi cture.
+ e.g. Test vs. Survey
+ a.k.a. eight different
ways to use the same
tool
+ Looks different,
functionally equivalent:
Quick Time™ a nd a
TIFF ( Un co mpr es sed ) d eco mp res so r
ar e n eed ed to s ee this pi ctur e.
vs.
Quick Time™ a nd a
TIFF ( Un compr ess ed ) de co mp res sor
ar e n eed ed to s ee this pic tur e.
+ e.g. Assignments section
vs. syllabus (to deliver
assignments)
+ a.k.a eight ways to do the
same thing
Purposeful Choices:
+ The tool and rules affect how the tool
will be used in class
+ Autonomy
+ Self-guided
 group work
 directed
Demo:
+ CW and Sakai sites side-by-side
Where is this going?
+ Constantly growing, improving
+ Broad community of adopters
+ Interesting new tools, tons of potential
+ CW aging (true? Stay tuned…)
+ Discovery, pilot, testing, adoption?
+ We’re here to help