CT Team Meeting Minutes 9/22/09

Present: Alex Chapin, Joy Pile, Adam Franco, Joe Antonioli, Bryan Carson, Dan Frostman
Minutes joyfully taken and presented by Dan Frostman

Discussion started out around the new CT home page. We came up with a partial sentence for the page:
“There are resources and support available for the use of technology…something something.”

Alex proposed links with short descriptions
Joe proposed more of a “story” approach
Adam – a list of projects, case studies, possibly in a feed?

Alex proposed that the case studies, tools, and pedagogies could all be interlinked – in other words, case studies have links to the tools, and vice-versa.

Adam proposed that these things be our Tier 1 links (case studies, tools, pedagogies).
Joe proposed adding Support to that list.

Short discussion about linking to CTLR – decided it was not an issue for this meeting.

Joe proposed new labels for the Tier 1 links: Tools, Use(s), Support, Stories
(much applause)

Recent stories could be a feed, not necessarily a link.

We looked at the Spark website. Dan wondered why we don’t just copy that.
Based on Spark, Bryan proposed “Support” becomes “Help”.

Adam predicted that Tools will be the ultimate endpoint for most users, no matter how they get there. But then conceded that this would possibly not be the case.

What now? (blank stares)

Joe: How do each of these things (the Tier 1 links) get represented on the home page?

Featured use case (story)?
Featured tool?
Blog feed
All of these could be on the page, too.

Dan wondered why we don’t just do a page with 4 links?
Joe explained that is not interesting or engaging.

Adam proposed more text on the home page with the links to the four Tier 1 links embedded in that text. More of a narrative with links rather than a list of links.

Joe threw in a crazy idea and showed us the Film and Media mock-up page, which has 3 tabs along the top, a sidebar, and a quick links box at the very top right. This helped us envision the new page a little better.

Homepage seems basically done. Now – What goes on the sub pages?

We need to go through the URL list and decide where (in which of the 4 links) will each thing live (if it is going to make the transition at all).

The Wiki will be the “how to” destination.

“Hardware” could be under Tools, with links to the Wiki.

Meeting adjourned to go to the next meeting.