These discussions give a background to
Safe Net and National Project to Establish
the Knowledge Sciences Curriculum
The background is just laid out, so that
others can see where
the process is and how they might
contribute to it.
From Brad:12/12/2003 6:27 PM
Here is what I'm thinking at the moment. None of this is working yet but should be in a few days. Hope some/all of you know XML; I'm thinking of settling on that as the course development notation.
If you're ruby-savy, you might click on the download link at http://virtualschool.edu/ile and browse around, but I doubt you'll get much from that; its really requires online browsing and the servlet engine won't cooperate.
As I see things, there will be a slowly growing inventory of tasks. Each task each is an XML file, each consisting of many pages. The body of each task page is coded in html with executable code in the form of Velocity statements, which has enough programming logic to do conditionals, loops, etc, sufficient to build interactive tasks. The tasks are generic, reusable across time. A course is an XML file that lays out a specific schedule (meeting dates, task due dates, etc) along with marketing collaterals (syllabii, etc), decorated with tasks.
The student sees this presented as a web-based "locker", showing links to competed tasks, due tasks, and upcoming tasks. The "teacher's" locker shows a queue for each task, with the tasks that have been submitted for review, links for opening a task submission and providing feedback on each answer. I used a perfection-based grading approach at GMU that may not be appropriate elsewhere, but there was an accept/reject checkbox on each task question and a text box for making comments on each one. Most of the workflow was automated, so faculty work load was minimal... lots of bang per buck.
I can handle this end unaided if you want to concentrate on course design. Main thing is designing an effective course as a sequence of interactive tasks. I found that simulations like Desert Crash map extremely well to the web, and could easily imagine this working as well in industry as it did at GMU, suitably adjusted.
There is one caution: I strongly advise against "self study, non-time-constrained, free form" thinking. Tried that once at GMU with *disastrous* results. The priority should be high-quality interactive, action-based learning, which can be managed with per-weekly schedules. But interaction completely collapses if everybody is on independent schedules, and quality learning goes right down the tubes.