Comments on: Is Sakai a Platform or a Product? http://mfeldstein.com/is_sakai_a_platform_or_a_product/ What Michael Feldstein Is Learning About Online Learning...Online Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:33:45 +0000 By: Michael Feldstein http://mfeldstein.com/is_sakai_a_platform_or_a_product/#comment-184 Michael Feldstein Tue, 14 Jun 2005 18:07:43 +0000 219785982#comment-184 Thanks for the compliment on SLN, Bruce. (And by the way, look for a fairly major overhaul of our web site in the next couple of months.) As you point out, we absolutely <b>do</b> need a teaching-centered conversation/community. This is actually something that I'm working on putting together out of SUNY, although it has gotten temporarily sidetracked due to time demands the major replatforming decision that we're in the midst of making. This, however, is not mutually exclusive with having a community that devotes its energy to platform development. I tend to think of Open Source teaching tools as the sharing of best teaching practices in the form of source code. Thanks for the compliment on SLN, Bruce. (And by the way, look for a fairly major overhaul of our web site in the next couple of months.)

As you point out, we absolutely do need a teaching-centered conversation/community. This is actually something that I’m working on putting together out of SUNY, although it has gotten temporarily sidetracked due to time demands the major replatforming decision that we’re in the midst of making. This, however, is not mutually exclusive with having a community that devotes its energy to platform development. I tend to think of Open Source teaching tools as the sharing of best teaching practices in the form of source code.

]]> By: Bruce Spear http://mfeldstein.com/is_sakai_a_platform_or_a_product/#comment-183 Bruce Spear Tue, 14 Jun 2005 13:15:08 +0000 219785982#comment-183 Thanks for the comments, Michael. I'm especially interested in your: "We'll need a commons, a community space where teachers can share insights about best tools for a given discipline or audience or instructional goal." I've read everything on the SUNY site I can click to from the outside, what I find is a package featuring a wealth of experience generalized into a well-structured introduction, workflow, and with lots of advice along the way -- a model and advice I've found very helpful for my job assisting faculty at an institution that is not that far along. I wonder if the problem is one of creating a community space or something much more detailed -- as the SLN site suggests -- a matter of developing principles out of practice, translating them into more general, accessible terms, and I wonder if the spontaneous, conversational model (and phantasm of community to which I generally subscribe) is the way to go. First, your system like mine has a public website and then a password-protected interior where, presumably, the good stuff is (like the SLN Handbook that I'd love to see): my colleagues, too, would build their "community" on the "inside", which seems to me both to provide a somewhat protected space AND compromise overall enterprise: I've got lots of colleagues who were happy making funky web pages, which they "owned", but who now find themselves yoked to Blackboard's templates and feeling like they are a commodity the university may someday dispose of as it sees fit -- sapping their morale. The Moodle users, as a group, seem happier in their sandbox (and I am envious). The best conversations I have are with teachers -- people who like teaching, first, and then use one or another element of the technology to further what they already do. They get a charge out of teaching, and they'd like to share this charge with others. So, I'm wondering if, rather than starting from the platform, we might start off from this charge -- the teachers teaching and students learning, and build from there: something I think Van Weigel, with the discussion of cognitive apprenticeship, deep learning, and vital communities of inquiry gets at rather powerfully. His frames of reference are not especially flattering to those of us interested in developing platforms: he sees them as tools (Lotus QuickNotes, EMC Documentum) better understood in terms of relevant metaphors (lecture hall, library, debating hall, etc.) because these metaphors -- rather than those the web technologies presently offer (rdms, lists, http protols) -- are more recognizably at the core of learning. So, rather than "platform" or "community" I'd begin with "seminar". Or? Thanks for the comments, Michael. I’m especially interested in your: “We’ll need a commons, a community space where teachers can share insights about best tools for a given discipline or audience or instructional goal.” I’ve read everything on the SUNY site I can click to from the outside, what I find is a package featuring a wealth of experience generalized into a well-structured introduction, workflow, and with lots of advice along the way — a model and advice I’ve found very helpful for my job assisting faculty at an institution that is not that far along. I wonder if the problem is one of creating a community space or something much more detailed — as the SLN site suggests — a matter of developing principles out of practice, translating them into more general, accessible terms, and I wonder if the spontaneous, conversational model (and phantasm of community to which I generally subscribe) is the way to go. First, your system like mine has a public website and then a password-protected interior where, presumably, the good stuff is (like the SLN Handbook that I’d love to see): my colleagues, too, would build their “community” on the “inside”, which seems to me both to provide a somewhat protected space AND compromise overall enterprise: I’ve got lots of colleagues who were happy making funky web pages, which they “owned”, but who now find themselves yoked to Blackboard’s templates and feeling like they are a commodity the university may someday dispose of as it sees fit — sapping their morale. The Moodle users, as a group, seem happier in their sandbox (and I am envious). The best conversations I have are with teachers — people who like teaching, first, and then use one or another element of the technology to further what they already do. They get a charge out of teaching, and they’d like to share this charge with others. So, I’m wondering if, rather than starting from the platform, we might start off from this charge — the teachers teaching and students learning, and build from there: something I think Van Weigel, with the discussion of cognitive apprenticeship, deep learning, and vital communities of inquiry gets at rather powerfully. His frames of reference are not especially flattering to those of us interested in developing platforms: he sees them as tools (Lotus QuickNotes, EMC Documentum) better understood in terms of relevant metaphors (lecture hall, library, debating hall, etc.) because these metaphors — rather than those the web technologies presently offer (rdms, lists, http protols) — are more recognizably at the core of learning. So, rather than “platform” or “community” I’d begin with “seminar”. Or?

]]> By: D'Arcy Norman http://mfeldstein.com/is_sakai_a_platform_or_a_product/#comment-182 D'Arcy Norman Mon, 13 Jun 2005 07:53:30 +0000 219785982#comment-182 Cool. So, then... Start building "Michael's Favorite Sakai Apps" disto... :-) Cool. So, then… Start building “Michael’s Favorite Sakai Apps” disto… :-)

]]> By: Michael Feldstein http://mfeldstein.com/is_sakai_a_platform_or_a_product/#comment-180 Michael Feldstein Mon, 13 Jun 2005 07:13:38 +0000 219785982#comment-180 I'm pretty sure that the license would <b>not</b> preclude the approach you're suggesting, D'Arcy. I’m pretty sure that the license would not preclude the approach you’re suggesting, D’Arcy.

]]> By: D'Arcy Norman http://mfeldstein.com/is_sakai_a_platform_or_a_product/#comment-179 D'Arcy Norman Mon, 13 Jun 2005 07:04:09 +0000 219785982#comment-179 Not knowing anything about the deployment packages, it just seems to me that the Official Sakai Disto could include every known app, but that others would be able to prepare smaller distros that were focused around a set of vetted/integrated tools. I suppose someone could come up with a K/12 distro, a Large University Distro, etc... Or, are there limitations in the license that would preclude this? Not knowing anything about the deployment packages, it just seems to me that the Official Sakai Disto could include every known app, but that others would be able to prepare smaller distros that were focused around a set of vetted/integrated tools.

I suppose someone could come up with a K/12 distro, a Large University Distro, etc…

Or, are there limitations in the license that would preclude this?

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