2012-06-13 Sakai as Glue: Integrating External Tools and Content

Title

Sakai as Glue: Integrating External Tools and Content

Presenters

Chris Clark (University of Notre Dame)

Date and time (EDT)

June 13, 2012, 5:15 PM - 6:45 PM

Room

Atlanta Ballroom

Description

Our Applied Multimedia course explored the metaphor of Sakai as glue, holding resources together. We will share statistics, focus group results, and strategies to enhance learning.

Experts used to encourage faculty to think of a CMS as one-stop shopping, but many tools were hard to use, limited, or missing. This course capitalized on the strengths of Sakai and used the course site like glue, to fasten on external resources.

From the Sakai toolset we only chose tools combining security with interactivity: Gradebook, Assignments, and Tests & Quizzes. External tools were glued on to provide more robust features like drag-and-drop or desktop sync. Box substituted for the Resources tool, Google Apps for Wiki, and WordPress for Blogs.

Nearly all course content was external. We used open courseware to post the syllabus, handouts, assignments, and more. Our library was able to provide free online access to two textbooks, leaving Lynda.com tutorials as the only items students had to pay for!

Materials

Poster image at Flickr

Slides from session