To help us create a section of the LIS site on Curricular Technology, I thought it would be good to see how other institutions publish comparable information. What we are currently calling “curricular technology” is described in various ways including “instructional technology“, “educational technology,” “academic technology,” and “technologies for teaching, learning and research.” What all of these labels have in common is seems to be the use of technology in education.
Clearly both surveys and focus groups are important tools for gathering information about a particular population. Usually surveys are used first, to a get general sense of the population. Surveys are then followed by focus groups that get more in depth information.
However a case can be made for reversing this order and starting with focus groups first, followed by surveys (see: “Use of Focus Groups in Survey Item Development“, The Qualitative Report, Nassar and Borders, March, 2002). Focus groups can often help to define survey questions or inform how questions are phrased. This can be particularly important for technology surveys, helping to couch questions in terms that those surveyed can understand.
This meeting focused on brainstorming about the use of curricular technologies at Middlebury in terms of:
The Helpdesk received a request for a WordPress Twitter plugin. If we decide it would be good to have such a plugin, what kind of functionality would useful for the Midd community. See:
http://blueprintds.com/2009/01/19/top-twitter-wordpress-plugin-roundup/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-tools/
http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2007/04/10-best-twitter-tools-for-wordpress-blogs/
What gets saved when you export a WordPress blog? I know the format of the export file is XML and that all posts, pages, categories and authors are exported. See:
http://support.wordpress.com/moving-a-blog/
Not sure if files, sidebar settings, themes or roles can be exported…. There are tools that exist to migrate WordPress blog to other platforms, but not all or perhaps any of them will migrate files…
There are two main modules for migrating WordPress content to Drupal, see:
http://drupal.org/project/wp2drupal
http://drupal.org/project/wordpress_import/
WP2Drupal interacts directly with the database, whereas WordPress_Import uses the WXR export file. It is not clear whether these migration modules also migrate WordPress files. There is Drupal code out there for migrating files on a remote server to Drupal, see:
http://bensangeorge.com/2009/06/drupal-bits-migrating-remote-files-in-drupal/
It also looks like Drupal is working on a migration framework, see:
http://drupal.org/project/migrate
Wellesley College uses FirstClass and its has extensive documentation on how to use it.
The Educause Live! series has a web seminar on Selecting and Implementing a Course Management System for Your Campus on August 5th from 1-2 pm.
(Thanks Joy for passing on this link)
A common approach to choosing a technology solution is to create a “feature matrix” which lists all the features required and numerical rates or weights each solution’s implementation of that feature. The best solution is then that one with the highest “score.”
For a good critique of this strategy see: CMS Selection – Death to the Features Matrix. This article suggests another approach, that of listing “doubts” regarding the importance of features or a solution’s implementation of a feature.
Segue from Segue Teaching with Technology LIS Staff Middlebury Community MiddPoints
