09
05
2005
StigmergicWeb Podcast #10 - Why schools need Drupal
Posted by: Rob Wall in stigmergicweb podcast, education, computer technology, usabilityI could have used my time productively tonight, but instead I put together a brand new stigmergicweb podcast, looking at school websites and how to improve their functionality.
Problems with many existing school websites:
- out of date information
- poor navigation, cluttered web pages (clown pants page design)
- content is maintained by a single person or small group of people within the school
- doesn’t serve the school community
What we need:
- timely, relevant information
- design with web standards
- everyone is a contributor
- enhances the community. Several highly successful online communities exist including slashdot and kuro5hin.
Drupal is a great tool for setting up a dynamic web site that can be maintained by all members of the school community. It has many features that lend itself to enhancing communication and community within a school. My generic high school site is an example of how this might work.
Please leave comments on the podcast here, or e-mail me at robwall [AT] gmail [DOT] com.
OK - time to get some serious lesson planning done!
Entries (RSS)
May 11th, 2005 at 10:12
Not sure if this would help you in your exploration of why Drupal works well for schools, but I have a presentation online that discusses why it is a good alternative to proprietary course management systems for colleges: http://cyberdash.com/files/tlt2005presentation.swf
May 11th, 2005 at 11:30
Wow - great stuff, Charlie. I agree in many ways with your view of proprietary LMS systems as a “course in a box”, especially in the sense that it imposes an artificial barrier to interaction beyond the course. In my experience, students learn more and are more engaged in learning when discussions extend beyond the class and out into the world. Drupal seems like a good tool for doing that.
May 11th, 2005 at 11:34
My experience is that students simply like using Drupal better. Here’s an end of the semester survey from this spring in which students in my technical writing class compared their experience with using Drupal to WebCT:
http://joe.english.purdue.edu/sp05/lowe2/node/912
May 11th, 2005 at 13:03
My experience is that students simply like using Drupal better. Well, that seems to justify Drupal or similiar tools over WebCT all by itself. Thanks for the link to the survey.
May 13th, 2005 at 18:13
Could you list the modules that you used to make this site? Thanks.
May 15th, 2005 at 22:03
[…] Generic High School - description
June 6th, 2005 at 10:59
Interesting discussion, thanks for the info.
I would like to point out that I see two distinct topics here. One is, what is the best platform for a school’s PUBLIC/COMMUNITY web site. For that, I agree that Drupal is the best (we will be migrating from phpWebSite to Drupal this summer). The second is course content delivery to students, which I think is a VERY DIFFERENT topic. For this, I think Open Source Moodle (http://www.moodle.org) is a much better platform. I’ve been using it for two years now, and it is THE open source content delivery system IMHO.
June 6th, 2005 at 11:48
Thanks for the comment, Dan. I completely agree with you that there are two distinct parts of the school that can be established online. My generic high school site (http://www.stigmergicweb.org/generic) has been an experiment in putting the community online using Drupal. I’d be interested to hear why you are migrating from phpWebSite.
Course delivery is handled extremely well by Moodle. I have been using it for the first time with some classes since February, and it has performed quite nicely. There are some possibilities, I think, for some level of integration between the two. With the recent news of integration of Moodle and LAMS, I think it has become the best platform for online course delivery, open source or proprietary.