Just an idea I’ve been getting

UPDATED 2012-03-27: What’s with all the icons and rollover pop-ups? They’re based on Compendium, which I’ve written about before. While they may not be appropriate for every everyday blog post, I’m asking you to have a look and leave a comment. Do you see a role for them within other web-based contexts you may be familiar with? If so, which? Leave a comment!

I’m trying to get experience design into my thinking about online learning, using the simple technologies I know and love: computers and various digital mobile devices, web browsers, HTML, CSS, JavaScript. For some time I’ve been headed towards the position  that documents are becoming obsolete. While I was thinking about that a teacher who is part of my Twitter PLN was putting together a wonderful Project-Based Learning experience with her grade 6 class, their parents and many others from the PLN. This led me to have an idea .

I began thinking about of boundary conditions this project would contain. I came up with a list of things I’d like to be able to do to design, deliver and chronicle an experience and what kind of tool or tools I could use or invent to do that .

I’m ready to make an assertion : working backwards from authentic content, with what I know already plus the help and participation of my PLN, we can create a WordPress plugin—or something else I haven’t thought of on my own—that combines the concepts of idea-mapping seen in Compendium with some of the functionality and utility seen in mobile devices within the context a tool with which to design and deliver learning experiences. Assertions should of course be based on solid arguments  and evidence, weighing the pros and cons.

Once again I refer you all to this thought-provoking article by Aaron E. Silvers, which will shed light on why certain words above are in bold.

What do you think? Are you interested? Please comment!

UPDATE: This link appeared in my Twitter timeline this morning. Timely! Web 2.0 Selection Criteria…

2 thoughts on “Just an idea I’ve been getting

  1. I like that the rollovers can be turned on or off with one click. The windows that pop up are quite slick in their appearance. Instead of having to click the red X to close the pop-up window, though, it would be good to be able to click anywhere outside it and have it disappear. (This might be more user-friendly when interfacing with a touch-screen device.)

    I can see this being very useful in an ESL context such as the one in which I teach (college ESL), where certain key words (e.g., high-frequency academic words, other key words being studied) can be defined instantly for the user with a rollover. Besides that, the various organizers can find wide application; I particularly liked the pros/cons one, which serves as a handy graphic organizer.

    Cheers,

    Kosta

    • Those are good ideas, thanks for the suggestions. The ESC key also dismisses the rollovers. So far this is all JavaScript, and setting it up is far too laborious for the average blogger. It needs a form-like interface to select options. The Instant WordPress post is my first step into doing it with a database back end, and their plugin API seems to allow everything I want to do. Blogger also has a widget setup, but it seems quite different from WordPress’s.

      Between the two, which blogging platform do you think is most used by teachers?

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