Drupal in Education

Drupal support sprint tonight, 8-10pm ET

ebrittwebb — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:03:49 +0000

Hi All,

Just wanted to alert you that tonight, 8-10pm ET, there is a Drupal support sprint on IRC #drupal-support.

Read more about it at http://bit.ly/L92x

Erik

Drupal in Education

Open University launches a community platform with Drupal

billfitzgerald — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 14:23:33 +0000

The Open University recently launched a platform based on Drupal.

The site is here: http://www.open.ac.uk/platform/

And a nice write-up of the site is here.

Marketing of Drupal

Outline Designer for Drupal 6!!!!

btopro@drupal.org — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:45:17 +0000

I've been working on a port of the Outline Designer module to Drupal 6 and it's almost ready for release. I've got a demo up of the current progress / direction that the project is taking but it's drastically changed since the Drupal 5 version; both architecturally and in terms of usability. It now piggy-backs functionality of the Ajax, Book, and Thickbox modules. You can check out the demo / screencast below. Feedback is muuuuuch appriciated as this module is still geared towards making Drupal more usable for the education crowd.

Demo - https://elearning.vmhost.psu.edu/demos/outline_designer/
Screencast - http://elearning.psu.edu/projects/node/124

Thanks to everyone pointing out issues and testing it out. The positive feedback has been much appreciated! There are a few issues left with it but I should be able to get a beta out the door before Thanksgiving unless something goes wrong at work.

Drupal in Education

Classroom Management Internet Resources

HansBKK — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:39:40 +0000

Someone posted this to the top level of the Getting Started handbook - good stuff but wrong place!

Here are some links I found useful for teachers dealing with Classroom Management issues. The links are correct at times of posting.

Classroom Management Internet Resources
General Education Classroom

Teaching Today
Provides teaching tips, lesson plans, and more.
http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/downloads/topic/classroom-management

Classroom Management
http://www.intime.uni.edu/model/teacher/teac3summary.html
“Classroom Management” is a web site which clearly identifies three major fundamentals of teaching; i.e., content, conduct and covenant management. Such guidelines will enable the teacher to focus on curriculum (content), discipline (conduct) and relationship management (covenant), thus creating three overall components in applying effective teaching skills.

The Teacher’s Guide: Classroom Management
http://www.theteachersguide.com/ClassManagement.htm
This web site provides the teacher with constructive information regarding all facets of discipline occurring within the classroom. Various links provide beneficial and acceptable practices in assuming and maintaining control of the classroom.

Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning
http://www.decal.state.ga.us//PreKTeachersPQA_Classrm_managemt.html?sele...
ments%2FPreK%2FABCBehaviorManagement.doc
This web site, established in 1993, by the State of Georgia describes effective and successful approaches in establishing high quality pre-school experiences to better prepare these children for kindergarten and beyond. It introduces developmental skills for the child to progress both intellectually and socially.

Classroom Management: discipline & organization
http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/classman.html
This unique web site offers a variety of approaches in encouraging students to become more inventive by offering a diverse range of challenges and objectives such as pledges and fundraising projects. Further, it contains initiatives for the teacher to incorporate students in promoting a well-organized classroom setting.

Teachervision.com: Classroom Management
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/page/5776.html
A resourceful web site sponsored by teachervision.com, offers a variety of links to assist the teacher in creating an organized and efficient classroom. It also provides the tools to develop personalized techniques, as well as implement an effective and significant teacher-parent relationship.

AOL Hometown: Classroom Management
http://hometown.aol.com/mellettk/Webpage/classroom-management.html
Designed for teachers, beginning teachers, and student teachers, this web site offers a wealth of information for teachers of all levels and experience. Forums are available for exchange of information to enhance the new teachers’ skill level, as well as provide an opportunity for more seasoned teachers to share their experience and expertise.

Clarity Connect, Inc.: Classroom Management
http://people.clarityconnect.com/webpages/terri/classmanagement.html
This web site written by a teacher describes this teacher’s working experience. Techniques offered by this teacher introduce approaches to simplify teaching practices by identifying and enhancing strengths while improving upon weaknesses. It further offers a self-evaluation to further clarify your teaching structure and effectiveness.

Iloveteaching.com: Classroom Management
http://www.iloveteaching.com/1stdays/manage.htm
This web site offers strategic planning in classroom management and organization. It also suggests a wide array of methodical suggestions in becoming a more effective teacher by introducing efficient and successful developmental procedures.

Unit 3: Organization and Management of the Classroom
http://para.unl.edu/para/Organization/Intro.html
“Organization and Management of the Classroom” is a well-defined lesson plan for today’s teacher in achieving their goals and objectives. This lesson plan includes a test whereby the teacher is tested and scored to determine strengths and weaknesses. Completion of this plan will allow one to evaluate himself/herself and take the necessary steps to develop and improve upon his/her teaching methods and techniques.

Center for Enhanced Teaching and Learning: Hong Kong University
http://www.ust.hk/celt/ta/taguide/skills/manage.htm
This web site is a part of a Teaching Resource Guide for Teaching Assistants. This direct link to Classroom Management information is one of many topics listed as TA Skills. The contents of this management page include; tips for classroom organization, classroom rules and expectations, classroom structure, problem solving and a resource listing.

ERIC Digest
http://www.ericdigests.org/1995-1/behavior.htm
The information in this digest is taken from “Managing Inappropriate Behaviors in the
Classroom” by Thomas C. Lovitt, Reston, VA: The Council for Exceptional Children, 1978, 44 pp. (ED 157 255). Major topics covered in this material include; preventing misbehavior, establishing rules, student motivation, token economy systems, decreasing undesirable behavior, punishment, individual and group management methods, and guidelines for management.

Education World
http://www.educationworld.com/clsrm_mgmt/index.shtml
Education World, a commercial site, has created this resource cite with many educational topics for teachers and administrators. This link will connect the user to the topic of classroom management. On this page, there are numerous annotated links to websites about management, rules, organization, rewards, and challenges around management in the classroom.

West Orange, New Jersey Public Schools: Classroom Management
http://www.westorange.k12.nj.us/edison/TeacherTraining/ClassroomManageme... /classroom_management_strategies.htm
Edison Middle School in the West Orange, New Jersey Public School system has created this web site for teacher training. Classroom management is one of several topics available for viewing. This site connects the user to the site created by trainers Maria David and Susan Zaccaro. Information contained here is constructed from the online materials for the CIESE workshop entitled: “Classroom Management and Mentor Teacher Training Strategies (K-12).”

Shambles: The Education Project of Asia
http://www.shambles.net/pages/staff/classmanag/
This website was designed to support the international school communities (teachers, support staff, administrators, students and families) in 17 countries in South East Asia. This URL will take the user to links and information specifically related to classroom management and challenge of behavior managements. Each link is titled and contains a brief description of contents. This site is created by Shambles and sponsored by several commercial groups.

Managing classrooms with diverse students
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development: Classroom Management
http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/menuitem.8835d3e3fbb1b0cddeb3ffdb62...
ASCD is a membership accessed web site. This URL will connect the user directly to an
introductory page about classroom management. There are several links to explore the topic and find additional articles, books and book chapters on the topic of classroom management. Those published by ASCD may be purchased on-line.

Talented Students
Center for Talented Youth: Classroom Management
http://www.jhu.edu/gifted/teaching/classroom.htm
This website is created by The Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth. Classroom Management is one of several links for users to find information about teaching students identified as academically talented. The focus of this page on Classroom Management is to create and maintain a safe, supportive, and challenging learning environment for students.

Technology
Classroom Management Technology Tools
http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/classroom/management.htm
This web site has been created by the Jefferson County Schools in Dandridge, Tennessee. This URL will take the user directly to the web page about Classroom Management Technology Tools. The site contains a listing of web resources and information links organized by a proactive

The Really Big List of Classroom Management Resources - Hosted by Tripod
http://drwilliampmartin.tripod.com/classm.html
This web site is a collection of classroom management and discipline websites, noted as possibly the largest on the web. Links area available to view information on classroom management techniques for elementary and secondary education, discipline ideas for new and experienced teachers, tips for handling special education, suggestions for getting organized, strategies for preventing behavior problems, sample classroom rules, ways of creating a caring community, and information on new products and services.

ProTeacher Web Directory
http://www.proteacher.com/030000.shtml
The Proteacher Web Directory is a commercial Web Site with multiple topics. On this site there are multiple links with frequent updates on topics for teachers. This URL will take the user directly to the topic of Classroom Management. Several links will connect the user to the ProTeacher community in which one may read testimonials from teachers regarding particular management issues and ideas. Additionally, there are summaries of links that are topic specific.

Drupal in Education

Drupal School building

gmasky — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 02:42:08 +0000

I am trying to structure Drupal as a virtual School building.

A school building has corridors. Within these corridors there are a number of class rooms. There are several corridors within a school building. The corridor is basically a container for the rooms.

OG seems the obvious choice for the rooms. Any ideas how I can have a corridor-room structure while using OG

===================Science Corridor========================

Science 1 Room--------Science 2 Room------Science 3 Room---------Science 4 Room

Thanx

Drupal in Education

Do It With Drupal Discount for Education

jjeff — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:34:48 +0000

Hello Educators!

I'd like to extend a 10% registration discount for The Do It With Drupal Seminar to everyone in the Drupal Education group. To receive the discount enter the code EDUCATION at the checkout. This discount code expires on November 21st (a week from tomorrow).

Do It With Drupal is a large-scale conference-style learning event happening in New Orleans, December 10, 11, and 12th. We've got a lot of superstar speakers from both Drupal and the greater web community. The event is being organized by Lullabot and features speakers such as Earl Miles (Views), Karen Stevenson (CCK), Moshe Weitzman (Organic Groups), John Resig (author of jQuery), Chris Pirillo (Lockergnome), Heather Champ (Flickr Community Manager), Chris Messina (Flock, DiSo, etc), Angie Byron (Drupal 7 maintainer), and many more.

For more information about the event please visit http://doitwithdrupal.com . Be sure not to miss the latest schedule and the blog for the latest news.

Hope to see you in New Orleans!

-Jeff Robbins
Lullabot

Drupal in Education

SCORM

sphism@drupal.org — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:19:29 +0000

Hello,

Great work on the drupal ed distro and i'm looking forward to reading the new book.

I'm wondering if you have any plans to view SCORM compliant files within drupal.

There's been some developments with the Drupal Scorm Project: http://groups.drupal.org/scorm

Currently this module displays content but it doesn't record any user data (such as how far a user is through the lesson).

Drupal in Education

Multisite questions

aaront — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:59:46 +0000

Hi all,

I'm working towards moving our university site (the Vancouver branch of Washington State University) over to drupal. Right now, after months of trial and error on a development server, I'm close to getting started on what will be our new web server, with plans to build up sections of the site department by department. So here's my question:

It seems desirable to use a multisite setup so each department's content, users, etc, lives in its own space, and each department gets its own subdomain (ie business.vancouver.wsu.edu). Seems like it would be a mess to have all the nodes, blocks, views, etc, together in one big blob and keep track of who can do what to which. So I successfully followed the "more secure multisite" directions, thinking that's a smart way to go.

But then, before going through install.php, I wonder, how will I set up the database? Do I set up a different database for each department? Maybe a bunch of small databases would be an advantage speed-wise and for keeping content separate, but would make it a lot harder to share content if that's even necessary, and a whole lot more to worry about when backing up databases. Or do I use some fancy database trickery to use a shared database where I decide which tables apply to all sites and which ones do not? Or, am I going in the wrong direction entirely and should I run everything through Domain Access (which now has a D6 version)?

Part of me just says I should keep going in the direction I'm headed, set up different databases for each department, and make it work, but that also seems like it might be foolish. Maybe a true multisite setup is only meant for using with unrelated sites that you want to run on the same codebase, and a more consolidated approach (Domain Access) is the way to go in our case. So that's why I'm asking you all. How do you handle this on your sites? Any thoughts? I'd love to hear em! thanks!

Aaron

Drupal in Education

Biblio records, an important project for Education

koyauni — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:21:15 +0000

There are certain Modules in Drupal (D6.6) which are of great value for Education related web sites. One of these Modules is "BIBLIOGRAPHIC MODULE"

http://drupal.org/project/biblio

Which is used for keeping Bibliographic records. It needs updates. The person which maintain this project has no time to do this. I think the Education group should see the value of this module and take over maintenance.

http://drupal.org/node/314284#comment-1084512

Our remote university in Iraq has made use of this so the students have the chance to look for relevant records related to their studies.

It need some added features such as Image and file attachment to share e-books, and ways that users leave comment of resored to record its usibilty.

I hope someone who knows programming is willing to give it ago.

Drupal in Education

Pedagogle - a file resource sharing site

dwees — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:11:55 +0000

So about 2 weeks ago, just before a break from school, I gave a presentation titled Using of Open Source Software in Education which is a topic that discussed quite a bit, but not often at my school. During the presentation I made the observation that if education were more like Open Source, we would solve a lot of problems involving resources that teachers have. In the context I was discussing during the lesson, I viewed a resource as a lesson plan, a worksheet, a test, an image, an audio clip to share with students, etc...

The problems teachers face with resources is that they:
1. Have trouble organizing their resources and therefore finding resources they want to use again.
2. Have trouble finding resources from other teachers.
3. New teachers have to spend so much time planning their lessons and dealing with classroom management, they have no time to find resources.
4. When veteran teachers retire, often nearly their entire collection of resources disappears along with them.

Now that many teachers are creating their digitally, they need better tools for keeping track of their resources. They also want to be able to easily share these resources with other teachers, and have the ability to find specific resources by topic. A quick search of Google's search index will quickly show how difficult it is to find anything decent for pretty much any educational topic.

A number of sites have sprung up over the last couple of years to try and handle this problem, but very few of them make it both easy to upload content and find content. I tried out some of these sites and I found the navigation unintuitive, cumbersome, and the process for getting involved looked too difficult. Another major problem is that once you find the lesson plan, worksheet, etc... it is almost always in HTML format, which makes it difficult to print it out immediately. I hate copying and pasting from HTML to my document editing program because of all of the fixes I usually have to make to the formatting of the document.

So over my week off from school I've built a site to share digital resources online. The layout is simple, finding content is easy, and getting involved is as straight forward as creating an account, and clicking an 'Upload Resource' link.

What was interesting for me, as a developer, when creating this site, is that it was my first experience in really digging deep into Drupal 6 and seeing the power of the modules which have been ported over from Drupal 5. Always before I've been sticking with Drupal 5 because of my concern over being able to implement all of the features I feel are necessary for my site. Since I created this site 2 weeks ago, I've actually nearly completed 2 more Drupal 6 sites, which shows the power of Drupal.

I coded one custom module for this site. My wife wanted to be able to add help text to any page pretty quickly to help our users get started. The problem is, I didn't see any easy of doing that so she could make the changes easily as a non-coder. So I created a module which allows you to search for a path, create help text for that path (or override existing help text) and then add the help text to the top of that page. Search for the path again, and you can edit the help text. If anyone knows of an existing module which does this already, let me know because I didn't find it when I searched Drupal.org.

I also made some major revisions to the Taxonomy Manager module, which allowed me to break the permissions for administering taxonomy into things like "add taxonomy term", "edit taxonomy term", "delete taxonomy terms", "move taxonomy terms".

Anonymous users can only view the taxonomy terms in a collapsible tree, and click on the term name to view all nodes under that term.

As soon as you log in, you gain the ability to add topics to the tree. Once you log in and upload enough resources to become a moderator of the site, you gain more permissions.

If you manage to stick it through and get to the admin level role, you can do almost anything you want to the tree (except delete multiple terms at a time...notice the radios instead of checkboxes).

The search form for finding resources is pretty much a stock view, with some custom theming of a couple of the fields, particularly the filemime field. I had to do some research and figure out which mimetypes recorded by Drupal corresponded to which most widely used application or file type.

I'm also using the Userpoints module to give users points for the actions they take on the site. The more things they upload, the more content they produce, the more positive points (called Karma on this site) they get. When you get enough points, you get an automatic upgrade to your user role, which gives you additional permissions on the site. This helps the site manage itself, because active users get more of a say in how the site operates, which is exactly what they want.

There are still some issues with the site that need to be resolved, but all in all it is working pretty smoothly. One major thing that needs to happen is that the site needs some branding, which means a distinct clean theme, and some logos to go along with the theme. Another is that since the site is free to use, and will probably consume a lot of server space and bandwidth, I need to find some funding for server space. Hosting it on my $90 a year shared webserver isn't going to work for long.

You can view the site, suggest improvements, help out if you want, join if like. Just go to http://www.pedagogle.com.

Drupal in Education

Dimdim demo and evaluation

gusaus — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:26:06 +0000

Chris Hughes from Dimdim will be giving our a community a personalized demo of their powerful online meeting and collaboration platform. It provides a self contained solution with many key features:

No Install to Start/Join meetings
Easily Share your Desktop
Audio & Video Conferencing
Present PowerPoint and PDFs
Private & Public Chat
Whiteboard & Annotations
Record and Playback Meetings
Multiple Presenters

These are just some of the potential uses:

An improved training platform for the Drupal Dojo, companies, and individuals
Remote sessions for DrupalCamps, DrupalCons, and local meetups
A compliment to project/task based Drupal Groups
A way for virtual companies to better communicate and collaborate
Potential integration of their open source community edition

This demo is open to anybody in the community. You can join by entering the meeting ID chrishughes1 at http://www.dimdim.com at the time of the meeting. If all goes well, we'll soon have an amazing new platform for Drupal learning, training, and collaboration.

Open learning and collaboration portal

E-learning platform

gmasky — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 08:13:39 +0000

I am having a look at Fronter e-learning platform which is quite popular in Europe. One thing immediately strikes me is how close the platform is to Drupal in basic functionality, yes they even use fck editor, Class rooms and other Learning rooms (OG) etc

One great piece of functionality I found; I could configure my IMAP or POP3 email address to work within the system. Similarly, I can add any number of RSS feeds within the system. The aim is obviously to have a learning platform (OS) which allows outside elements to work from within the system.

What would it take to get such email functionality and RSS functionality to work from within Drupal.

I will post back as I explore the system.

Drupal in Education

Boston Area Drupal in Education meetup

Peter.Farrow — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 00:43:21 +0000

Erik Britt-Webb and I are organizing a meetup for the evening of November 3rd in Newton. The idea is for it to be the first of many meetups where people using Drupal in education and training in the Boston area get together for talks, workshops, coding sessions, etc. Post if you are interested and let us know what you would like to do at the meetups.

Drupal in Education

Drupal learning, mentoring, training, education, marketing and business... common goals and agendas

gusaus — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:41:04 +0000

Just want to lay out the goals/objectives/resources from the various learning groups and see if we can identify some common goals and ways we can interface. I'll post this as a wiki in the hope we can collectively add resources, revise, and organize.

Goals and desired outcomes

Develop a sustainable curriculum and training program;
Discover and recruit new talent;
Help end-users to evaluate a specialist by providing standard "levels of expertise";
Reach out to make new audiences aware of Drupal who might not be currently aware;
Attract peripheral Drupal types to become more closely involved and active;
Raise awareness of Drupal among some key target groups;
Educate businesses about the benefits and costs of using Drupal as a platform for their business;
Promote a sustainable business ecosystem in the Drupal community;
Grow Drupal through local groups;
Create a more effective platform to provide free online training, mentoring, and a showcase for Drupal

Key objectives

Determine the best setup for live lessons and collaboration
- Accomplishing this key Dojo objective will create enormous value for the project
Create a repository for learning and marketing materials
- Aggregate materials (video, audio, slideshows, documentation) from the cloud
- Provide a means to evangelize/discuss/filter/recommend issues important to the community
Create production guidelines for educational videos
Develop a process and guidelines for creating and submitting learning and training materials
Establish guidelines and a workflow for open Drupal development
- Open up channels of communication/collaboration with Drupal, Drupal Dojo, DROP, regional groups and other related efforts.
- Match mentors, coaches, and apprentices

A Capstone project

Open learning and collaboration portal - This has the potential of being a capstone project in which we can create a very valuable product/profile (Dojo would just be one use case), create a wide range of valuable training materials, attract new talent, and create a framework that will ensure that the Drupal project, community, and economy will continue to thrive and innovate.

Structure, support, sustainability

Ways to ensure stability and sustainability

Clearly define how individuals and companies can support the long term sustainably of Drupal learning and training.
Organizational and Leadership Structure - Originally crafted with the Dojo in mind; an organization, leadership, decision making, and incentive structure should ensure that we have the resources to make our shared goals and objectives attainable.

Resources

Learning, mentoring, training, and education groups

Curriculum and Training
- Members: 240
- Description: This is a group to organize and discuss the development of Drupal courseware to be used for training students at Drupal Camp and other training events.
- Current status/issues/problems:
- Short term goals:
- Long term goals:
Drupal Dojo
- Members: 1575
- Description: The Drupal Dojo was created for apprentice/journeyman developers who want to increase proficiency, and for experts looking to grow the pool of Drupal talent.
- Current status/issues/problems: After many months of stagnation, there seems to be a at least a desire to resurrect this once highly valuable training (and recruiting ground)
- Short term goals: http://groups.drupal.org/node/15832
- Long term goals: http://groups.drupal.org/node/2191/redesign
DROP
- Members: 72
- Description: DROP is a program dedicated to helping people find easy, short-term ways of making valuable contributions to Drupal, as well as helping them become a part of the Drupal community.
- Current status/issues/problems:
- Short term goals:
- Long term goals:
Drupal in Education
- Members: 565
- Description: This group is an umbrella group for supporting and discussing the various uses of Drupal in educational settings.
- Current status/issues/problems:
- Short term goals:
- Long term goals:

Other groups, projects, and discussions

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source projects.
Google Highly Open Participation Contest (GHOP) - initiative to get pre-university students involved in open source software development. The contest brought together more than 350 students from around the world to help ten Open Source projects make improvements to their code base, marketing materials, documentation and user experience research.
Training and certifications session@ szeged2008.drupalcon
Drupal Essential Training (Lynda.com)
Lullabot Workshops and seminars

Open learning and collaboration portal

From Drupaled 5.6 to Drupaled 6

pat542 — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:34:38 +0000

Hi everyone,
this post is meant for Bill of course, but anyone willing to answer is more then welcome. As part of a project for implementing a service to several secondary schools we tested Drupaled for a while. We are now in the process to prepare a version to be distributed as version 0 (the schools will work with similar navigation schemes, templates and compulsory contents managed individually). The pilot version is based on Drupaled 5.6. I was wondering about the upgrade to version 6. Will it be possible to upgrade the school sites later from 5.6 to 6? What steps are to be foreseen?
Thank you so much for helping.

Drupal in Education

Drupal tips for educators / end users

btopro@drupal.org — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:45:07 +0000

https://www.e-education.psu.edu/facdev/drupal_tips

Another unit at Penn State started building out a "Drupal tips" site and I wanted to put a notice out on here about it. It's got a lot of tips for how to effectively use different modules for educational purposes. It also has some walk throughs for things that non-admins might want to know how to do like "How do I make a page that students can edit in the course" how to use hovertips / tooltips js modules effectively and things like that. It's an ever growing resource that they are building for their IDs / instructors to reference as they build out course content (they have upwards of 50 courses delivered via Drupal) so it'll be growing in the future.

Could be a good starting point for pointing your end-users to at some point if they are doing content editing.

Drupal in Education

Dojo 2.1: Another attempt to revive the Drupal learning and mentoring group

gusaus — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 06:38:47 +0000

Several months have passed since the Dojo lost it's way a bit when some noble ninjas attempted to create a great deal of good for the Drupal project. In a group of 1500+ members, there is no way to achieve any sort of consensus to why it stalled, how it could succeed, or what the purpose was in the first place. There are, however, a lot of indicators that the concept/ideal of an open learning/mentoring group is solid and is worth reviving. In that spirit, we've created a special section (see here) where we'll provide a recap where we left off and put forward some plans to get this valuable effort moving again.

Marketing of Drupal

Contract Drupal Web CMS Developer | Bellingham SD

thorprichard@drupal.org — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:13:32 +0000

This past year, we have been working with Bellingham Public Schools (WA) to help clarify and define a Web strategy and implementation plan for their public Web site. Through this effort, they have accepted our recommendation to pursue development with Drupal. They have published a "request for quotation" to select a qualified Drupal developer to build the Web site according to these Web strategy and implementation plans.

To remain impartial during our earlier work with them to evaluate various CMS options, we recused ourselves from consideration in this next phase of work. Instead, we will act as an advising Web "architect" to support and facilitate understanding between the district and the selected developer from this process.

For complete details about the opportunity, please read and follow all the details here:

Drupal in Education

Ideas for an updated school profile installation

dwees — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:16:24 +0000

All the core stuff, forums, blogs, events, etc.
Typical roles for school communities (admin, office, tech, faculty, parent, student, volunteer, alumni)
OG for classrooms
CCK/Views for custom content types, such as Assignments.
Admin menu, tweaked for multiple roles (or the multiple blocks/role method described by dwees)
WYSIWYG editor, with some simplified configs
- Fck Editor
- TinyMCE editor
- OpenWYSIWYG
"Intranet" section for faculty file repository, private forums, etc.)
Multiple, school-oriented themes
Several CSS-based themes for teachers to personalize their OG classrooms.
Teacher clipart collection. (I know!)
Taxonomy categories to define departments, classes, subjects, curriculum descriptions, assignment types, etc.
Some standard front end pages with example content, such as "Welcome new families", "How to enroll", "Meet our staff", etc.
Some additional features, such as simple galleries and file uploads
Multilingual (for example Spanish/English in my area)
Administrative features:
- Resource management
- Attendance management
- Gradebook
- Class schedules

Core features

It is great to have many ideas of possible features to add, but in order to have something simple and well designed from the beginning, why don't we start by implementing the bare minimum first, and test it around before we get carried away and add any more stuff ?
Here's my ideas fore the most essential features we'd need to have :

A clear, easy admin page (dashboard) and admin menu for two basic roles : teachers, and admins (headmaster, secretaries, etc.)This was the root of our conversation, and probably the most important feature. This page should probably be devided in several tabs to avoid clutter, and it should include icons that would help users make sense out of it. The most used features should displayed prominently.
WYSIWYG editor, with some simplified configs (VERY important to users, especially teachers who design their courses)
CCK/Views for custom content types, such as Assignments.

I think these are the 3 core features we should focus on to start with, in order of priority. If you don't think these are the most important for your current project or for school websites in general, please modify the list above.

dwees:

I agree with starting with core features and trying to avoid feature bloat but the intention here is not to compete with the DrupalEd distribution. We'd like to have different features if at all possible, we don't want to end up duplicating a lot of the work that went into that distribution. The only thing the DrupalEd distribution is missing from your core features list is the clear, easy admin page. Maybe if we find an elegant solution to that, we can propose to Bill that he include it in the next release of DrupalEd.

billfitzgerald:

dwees said exactly what I was thinking -- we've been slammed with work, which has prevented me from putting down my thoughts on the D6 version of DrupalEd, but, in a nutshell, our two main goals for it are simplifying the base install and streamlining the UI -- and much of this discussion centers around exactly these two things. So, I'm very open to DrupalEd becoming a community-supported platform, and for these changes to inform what DrupalEd for D6 becomes.

jrDuboc :
Hi there,
as promised, here is a rough model of the kind of stuff I see for a simplified dashboard : http://sandgarden.org/uploads/drupal_dashboard/sketch1_drupal_dashboard....
It is limited in features, on purpose.
The goal is to put all the stuff user actually need the most together at the same place, so we get the simplest interface possible for "basic" users.
Also, I tried to put the most useful things in the first tab.
Everyone is welcome to download the files and modified them, I put them in a .zip file here : http://sandgarden.org/uploads/drupal_dashboard/drupal_dashboard.zip
Don't hesite to critizise it and add your ideas.

dwees:

I like it! I see some minor improvements. For something like the Drupal edit distribution, it would be nice if the content presented for the user to admin was content the user is able to edit. So a teacher could have a similar form, with reduced functionality, a student would have the same form with greatly reduced functionality, etc... Also, we can add tabs, like 'My groups', 'My recent', 'My files', etc...

billfitzgerald: In D6, we can use Views to generate the bulk of these dashboards -- and this is where Views 2's more granular permissions to show/hide views can be put to good use.

dwees:

Yes, Views very good point. Also the Views Bulk Operations module has been updated for Drupal 6, so we can use it as well.

Drupal in Education

Import class schedule and auto-create nodes

gettysburger — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:09:20 +0000

I've been trying to figure out a way to sync my college's class schedules with nodes in Drupal. We use Datatel and, on our current non-Drupal site, dump the data into a mySql database and use a simple form to search the classes. I'd like to set it up in our new forthcoming Drupal site, to have nodes created from the records in the mySql database.

Is there some module for importing databases => nodes?

Is there a way to sync the database to Drupal directly so when the db is updated, Drupal is updated?

Thanks,
Stephen Recker

Drupal in Education

Collecting Household Info for School PTO Directory

ebrittwebb — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:23:25 +0000

I've been working with a couple of Newton Public Schools to help their PTOs take their directories online. These directories contain contact information for each household, including home address/email/phone, parent info and student info.

I think where we're headed is to use CiviCRM to manage all this, since it has the contact management and the relationship management features built in. But it's taking some effort to get this configured. Has anyone done this before? Any advice?

I'm also trying to come up with a simpler, short-term solution that may not be as robust, but that allows parents to enter and validate their information. I set up a Google Docs spreadsheet and front-end form which allows them to enter the data. But they it goes into a black box, which can't see. There's no way in Google Docs to show them their data again and ask them to validate it. Are there any solutions that support this without requiring each updater to login with a user account (e.g., by having a randomized URL link instead)?

Thanks for any feedback.

Drupal in Education

LDAP integration

wjdennen — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:38:39 +0000

Hi, I have ldap authentication working with this module (http://drupal.org/project/ldap_integration).

It's working fine, if the user does not exist in drupal, it is created automatically upon login.

I would like to find some way to mass-create drupal accounts for all users in ldap, though.

Is there a way to do this? Thanks.

Drupal in Education

E-Learning in the Arts (and Education) Presentation Posted!!!

btopro@drupal.org — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:09:50 +0000

This is a reposting from http://elearning.psu.edu/projects/node/113 of a presentation that I put up yesterday. It's me at The International Designs on E-Learning Conference a few weeks ago talking about how Penn State (more specifically e-Learning Institute) is using Drupal to power our course infrastructure. This is mostly high level but has a lot of screen shots, selling point type info, links, and a detailed walk through of two of our courses / some of our projects.

It's here! Here's my presentation from the Designs on e-Learning Conference held earlier this month. The talk is called "E-Learning Management and the Arts: The Drupal Solution". It's available on ITunes U, also the low and high quality version of the presentation are located at the bottom of the page (same with just the PowerPoint). It's about 32 minutes long and has some great stuff including:

Screen shots of our courses
Description of ELMS
Walk through of the Assignment Studio being used in our Art 020 course and Flir in Music 009
Useful links...in video form!
Me talking about things and waving my arms around in a suit

Please give feedback, I'm giving an extended version of this talk at the end of the month (2 hours long) that will be more technically focused and any feedback would be much appreciated! Please pass this on to anyone that you think would find this information useful!

PowerPoint Presentation (320x240 -- .mov)

Low Quality Version (320x240 -- Ipod)

High Quality version (640x480 -- really big)

Drupal in Education

Library Drupal BoF in Chicago

leoklein@drupal.org — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:40:05 +0000

Just a preliminary head's up that we'll be having a Library Drupal BoF as part of the Chicago Drupal Camp taking place at UIC on Friday & Saturday, Oct. 24 & 25.

They're still working on the program, but the Library BoF will be on Friday (10/24) in the early afternoon (probably starting at 2pm or 3pm). Location: Innovation Center (1240 W. Harrison - near Racine) in Chicago. (website: http://drupalcampchicago.org)

The goals of the Library BoF (besides getting together) are:

Showcase library-related Drupal projects in the Chicagoland area.
Talk about future plans and aspirations, field questions and compare experiences.

So whether you've done a project or would like to do a project, this event is for you. We had a great time doing this in Anaheim for ALA and it's good to organize something similar for the home team.

Mark you calendars today!

UPDATE (9/26/08): Here's the official link for the event on the Drupal Camp Chicago site:

http://drupalcampchicago.org/day1-session3b

Libraries

Drupal in Education showcase video

Amazon — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 19:47:54 +0000

Marketing of Drupal

Drupal training / discussion at Penn State!

btopro@drupal.org — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:08:08 +0000

On Sep 30, 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM in room 141 Computer Bldg, UP, Bryan Ollendyke from the e-Learning Institute at PSU (see http://elearning.psu.edu/) will chat about e-Learning's use of Drupal for course development and implementation. If you are curious about what a center is doing in this area, please consider attending. Lunch is provided.

You can also attend via Adobe Connect at http://breeze.psu.edu/itpro. <-- you can sign up for a friends of penn state account on this page if you need one to connect from outside PSU

Normally you are asked to register for this at https://register4its.psu.edu, but I don't see anything there for this event. If I do find a link, I'll send it out. There is no cost to attend; they just need head counts.
-------------------------------------

Here's a rough outline of what I'll be talking about / covering. This is also very open to questions so we might not get to everything if there's enough interest.

Talking points:

* Introduction
o Brief of my background / involvement in the Drupal community
o Brief of the institute's history relative to Drupal usage
* What is Drupal?
o Brief History
o Philosophy
o Make up of the community
* Why / How can you use Drupal?
o Why we chose Drupal over other options
o Drupal's Track Record
o Big name examples
o Sites around PSU using it
o Courses using it (EMS / e-Learning Institute)
* Understanding Drupal's architecture
o Requirements (LAMP stack)
o Core, Modules, Themes, profiles...How do they all work together!?
o Sample implementation
* Installing Drupal
o Which Drupal should I use? (4.x, 5.x, 6.x, 7.x, HEAD!?)
* Community modules you NEED to download
o Views, CCK, Outline Designer, Administration Menu, Devel, DHTML Menu, Search and Replace
* Community modules you should look into
o OG, Flir, Coder, Nice Menus, Others
* Good themes to use for starters
o Pixture (sample sites using it)
o Garland (packaged / sample sites using it)
o Zen
o Others
* Writing a sample module
o How to write a simple module
* Writing a sample theme
o How to take any website and make it work in Drupal (quickly!)
* Critical Resources
o Books
o Blogs / Websites / Communities of interest
* Questions?

Look forward to seeing you there / having you log in!

Drupal in Education

Sustainable Development, Installation and Maintenance through Open Contributions

nickvidal — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:37:14 +0000

Proposal
We propose a sustainable solution for Development, Installation and Maintenance of Content Management Systems through Open Contributions. Specifically, this proposal is for building a module for the Drupal Platform called Open Contributions.

Overview
Instead or charging Universities for the installation of a CMS upfront, and monthly payments for maintenance, we propose another model:

Charge no money at all or a reasonable amount upfront for installation, giving that the University is willing to allow open contributions from users of the system;
The Open Contributions module allows users to contribute with any amount of money to help maintain the system;
All contributions are truly open - not only in the sense that contributions are spontaneous, but also that they are visible. Thus, everyone knows how much each and every individual is contributing. The sum of all contributions is also visible. This helps to keep the process as transparent as possible;
The usefulness of the system for each individual is also measured and visible. This is measured through a series of metrics, such as the dissemination and access of information;
An ordered list is presented with individual contributions and individual usefulness;
It's expected that the individuals who feel that the CMS is most useful for them will make the biggest contributions. But this is not imposed. This is left open. It's up to each individual to understand what's Freedom and Openness. The Open Contributions module only helps people become aware of these open contributions;
The sum of contributions is used to maintain the system. This will go to pay maintainer(s)/developer(s) for their time and work; All these payments are open and visible for anyone to see;
The Open Contributions module will also list the current system and modules installed;
Part of the sum of contributions may be used to pay the developers of each module and the system (in this case, the Drupal Association). These payments will also be open and visible to anyone to see;
To avoid lock-ins, the university is open to look for other companies for maintenance if there is evidence of abusive practices.

Is this sustainable?
We believe the open contributions will be enough to cover the costs of Development, Installation and Maintenance of Content Management Systems at Universities. An example and a rough estimate is provided below:

Let us suppose we have a university with 30.000 people;
Of these, only half uses the CMS, thus: 15.000 people;
Of these, half doesn't contribute with anything, thus: 7.500*0 = $0
From the remaining half, only half of these contribute with $10/year, thus: 7.500*$10 = $75.000/year
From the remaining half, only half of these contribute with $20/year, thus 3.750*$20 = $75.000/year
From the remaining half, only half of these contribute with $40/year, thus 1.875*$40 = $75.000/year
...
Summing all these budgets, we have a very reasonable amount that can be used to maintain and improve the system;
The openness of the system will create a positive peer pressure among the biggest users to contribute (for example, researchers who have big projects that enjoy big visibility);
The openness of the system will create a positive peer pressure for the company that provides the service to distribute the contributions fairly.

Knight Drupal Initiative

FYI: og_forum D6 Version Available

attheshow — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:39:54 +0000

Just an FYI announcement. If anyone is using the og_forum(http://drupal.org/project/og_forum) module to automatically create forums to go along with user groups, and has been waiting for a D6 version, Paul Booker finally got a chance to port that this past week. I'm excited. It's still a "dev" release, but this new update looks very solid so far. Just thought I'd share.

Drupal in Education

New Book: Drupal for Education and E-Learning

billfitzgerald — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:21:50 +0000

Hello, all,

At the risk of indulging in shameless promotion, I wanted to announce that I wrote a book on using Drupal in Education -- I have an announcement on d.o about it, but I also wanted to post here to get the word out.

The book is titled Drupal for Education and E-learning, and it's due out from Packt Publishing in late October. The book targets Drupal 6, and it's geared toward non-developers and site admins.

For people new to Drupal, the book includes details on:

Drupal terminology;
User creation;
Role based access control;
Installing modules and themes;
Backing up and upgrading your site;

For more experienced Drupallers, the book covers:

Using CCK to extend content types -- instructions cover sharing media, images, links, text, and files;
An overview of Views 2, including adding new views, using the new access control mechanisms of Views 2, configuring multiple displays from a single view, and cloning and modifying existing views;
An overview of Organic Groups, including instructions on how to use groups to support informal and formal learning;
Extending user profiles to support connections between users.

The book also covers theming basics, and how to use the menu and block system to create sites that are easy and intuitive to navigate.

I had some help getting this done -- fellow primates Marc Poris and Jeff Graham gave me some great feedback throughout the writing proess, and also wrote the code snippets in the book. Also, Peter Wolanin and Michael Peacock, two of the technical editors, gave me some great feedback that helped during the revision process.

For those so inclined, you can also Digg this story.

Cheers,

Bill

Portland (Oregon)

Student Profile: CCK+Views+Book+OG

himtuna@drupal.org. — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:18:41 +0000

Hi I am working one my school site. I need help with couple of things.

Create a student profile with CCk

create associated content types like marksheets,etc

Each student has a unique ID: Enrollment No
This would be the user name for drupal site.
and all the pages of the student will have the URL as school.org/students//

now to display the student in a section in a class of the year. We'll use books, such as

2008
-class 5
--section C
---
-----marksheets
-----competitions participated
-----custom pages added by him

Now url for last three items goes like this
school.org/students/enroll_no/class_section/
This can be done by editing the default URL alias, and putting the cck fields in the URL.

NOW THE PROBLEMS

1) how to create permissions that a student can author a page and outline to the book.
but restricted to his profile only.. and after he is promoted to next class he cant add any more pages.
I have never worked with OG.
is it possible to do with OG?

2) Mulitplying the views for each student.
Now i can create a view and define a path for A STUDENT like this
school.org/students/enrol_no
which shows every detail associated with cck field=particular enroll i.e that student.

now how do i achieve it for every enroll no and define the path automatically.

Drupal in Education

Post your proposed session for DrupalCampLA 2008

Chris Charlton — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:27:11 +0000

This is easy and quick, nothing fancy, no voting - just post your session idea (title) and your name/contact info and show up to present that day! We have sessions open from 10am-2pm each day (Saturday and Sunday) and each session should plan for 45 minutes each.

http://groups.drupal.org/node/12528 (edit wiki page)

If you can't see or edit the wiki page, be sure to join our group which may be required for editing the wiki page.

Zen Task Force

making text-editing easy for children

-anti- — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:41:38 +0000

I'd like to know what text editors are mainly used in middle-schools:

Something which is:

· simple, but allows children (& technophobic teachers) to add basic formatting their posts.
· allows inserted images to be easily floated right or left so text wraps around them.

I'm experimenting tinytinymce at the moment (TinyMCE had too many problems).
Basically, the only reason I'm considering it is because it has the option to float inserted images.

Do young students (8-14yo) tend use wysiwyg, or do they use markup editors like bbcode, markdown, etc?

Cheers.

Drupal in Education

Categories/Taxonomy Question - parent and child terms

dmcw — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:10:41 +0000

I'm working with a few groups of instructors on sites that facilitate lesson plan creation, sharing, and discussion.

We're using the categories module to create several vocabularies like the following:

* Syllabii
* Course Calendars
* Sequence 1 (4)
* Sequence 2
* Sequence 3 (2)
* Themes (2)
      o Art (1)
      o Identity (1)
      o Language
      o Literacy
      o ....

I've been looking for a way to make sure that any node tagged with a child term (e.g., "Art" in the example above) also gets tagged with the parent (e.g., "Themes" in the example above).

At the moment this only happens if users control-click on all of the appropriate terms.

I've seen the taxonomy force all module, but was looking for something that would tag the actual nodes with all of the appropriate terms.

If you have any hints or ideas, I'd very much appreciate the help!

Thanks!

Doug

Drupal in Education

Central User base, multiple sites

btopro@drupal.org — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:12:47 +0000

I'm looking for a way to do the following:
* Have a central site the syncs up user accounts with XML feeds (already have working)
* Have sub sites (aka courses) use the user accounts from the central site
* Need to be able to do this without storing accounts locally in any of the course

Has anyone done anything like this or know of any way of accomplishing this? We have webaccess / cosign going so we have a single sign on system, i'd just like to keep everything central because we need to account for people adding / dropping courses via the XML string that gets updated twice a day.

Drupal in Education

Drupal in Education Handbook -- help grow the community!

mac11 — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:47:04 +0000

So I've been starting down the path of building a stronger community at Penn State that's interested in Drupal. I know of about 60+ interested parties who at least want some more information about how Drupal could be used at my university. I'm also mentoring 4 or so students / staff in Drupal and as part of that effort, began to write an online book in Drupal to go over the basics or at least provide links out to other locations so they could get up to speed quickly. This began my thinking of a drupal@psu resource until I began to think a bit more about the resource.توبيكات

Drupal in Education

organic groups change in Drupal 6?

cindyr — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:44:15 +0000

Help! I know this isn't the right place to post this, but I'm not getting help from the OG list and I'm getting desperate - school started yesterday. I upgraded my site, well actually recreated my site on Drupal 6. Last year, I had several blocks on each group home page that would display information pertinent to that group, for instance FAQ's or upcoming class birthdays. I did this easily with the views filter, using "OG Posts in Current Group" and "OG Posts in User-Subbed Group", making sure that it was on the right page (view) and the user was allowed to see it.

Now in Drupal/OG/Views 6, I can't find a filter that mimics the "OG: Posts in User-Subscribed Group" filter. Does anyone know what happened to it, if it's coming back, or have any ideas on how to work around this? As it is, I get all blocks on the correct page, but it shows content that the user shouldn't see if they stumble across the home page of a group they don't belong in.

Thanks,
cindyr

Drupal in Education

privacy on school websites

-anti- — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:30:23 +0000

I know private uploads been done-to-death in the drupal forums, but I do need fresh, clear advice from other school website maintainers.

For a school website, where many of the uploaded media files will contain images and work of pupils, it is very desirable (almost necessary) to make sure they are protected so that only users with accounts can access them (meaning that urls pointing directly to files should throw a 403 error for anyone not logged into the site).

However, from the dozens of pages I've read, spanning v4.7 to v6.x, on balance it seems that placing uploads into a directory above public_html causes nothing but problems.

A)
I would love to use drupal's private upload system, so that I didn't need to worry about every single item the children/teachers upload to the site. I could give them a general warning about sharing sensitive material, and be done with it. So I would basically like to hear anyone who has got D6 and the private upload system working well with IMCE and a clutch of other media-orientated modules?

B)
The other alternative is that I drum it clearly into everyone's brains that no uploads are secure from direct linking, and place heavy restriction and moderation on everything that can be uploaded. The only merit in this is that it may teach the children to be wary of what they publish on other websites like myspace, flickr, facebook, etc.

However, it will be very detrimental to the amount of material we can upload to the site. It is one thing to share personal work or semi-sensitive documents within our school community, and quite another to have some idiot share the direct link to it on the rest of the net. Is anyone in a similar situation? Thoughts? Ideas?

C)
I'd also like to know what will happen in D7 or further in the future?
· Will there there an improvement in the private upload system?
· If so, do I need to choose 'private' now in D6 to use the improved private upload after upgrading to D7?
· Will all the modules which currently get broken by private uploads ever eventually be fixed?

It seems to me that many users, especially in education, are crying out for file protection, not just in drupal but on the net generally. Is this something I can say to the headmaster 'not now, but in a couple of years we'll be able to protect files'?

Thanks.

BTW, this is my first usage of 'groups'. Is this a default version of the OG module?

Drupal in Education

track volunteer hours?

cindyr — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:41:29 +0000

I've redesigned my school site this year, scratched the Drupal 5 version and started over with Drupal 6, and I'm really pleased with it. I'll try to post a case study in the next month or so. In the meantime though, we're looking for a way to track parent volunteer hours. I've seen Case Tracker and Project, but both look like overkill for me. The other option I suppose it using CCK's Computed Field, although they haven't released a final Drupal 6 version yet.

All I need is a date field, a short text field, and a field for minutes/hours. Then I need a way to total that field. Ideally, I could then run a report across all of the users too, to tally up or dump into a spreadsheet the users and total number of hours.

Is this better suited to something like WebForm?

Any suggestions?
cindyr

Drupal in Education

Website developer/Moodle Specialist | Bright World

megabrady — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 18:27:58 +0000

General Overview of Company:

We are an Arlington, Virginia-based start-up company that provides online language learning. Among other things, our service will include (1) self-paced online courseware (2) live virtual 1-on-1 and group tutoring sessions with a live instructor who students can see on his or her webcam, (3) the ability for students to chat with each other by text, audio, and possibly video, and (4) social networking features.

We need a contract web site developer, Moodle specialist and a graphic artist to help us create a web site that would have the functionalities described below.

How the Site Works: Our site will largely consist of two main components: the “main” or “company” page that users are directed to when they come to our site. The other component is the “online school,” where members are directed to once they login to their account (our Moodle site). The steps that a user might progress through would basically involve arriving at out site, becoming a member by enrolling in the 7-day trial (or joining outright), and creating a username and password and entering their credit card information. Their credit card will be charged the monthly fee if they do not cancel within 7 days, and will continue to be charged until they terminate their membership. Once users are members, they will gain access to the “Online School” (Moodle site).

LMS:
We are looking to customize Moodle to serve as our LMS that would include the majority of the features described below. We would like to customize this Moodle part of our site to match the main page of our site. Within our Moodle area of the site we will be incorporating: Auralog’s Tellmemore software as a SCORM package licensed to each user; Virtual Classroom software (likely dimdim), which will be used for group lessons as well as 1-on-1 tutoring; Scheduler (possibly Moodle Scheduler, though likely another more robust option); Social Networking Site (such as Elgg); Other learning tools that we may be developing (TBD).

Content Management System
The design of our site should include the use of a CMS, such as Plone, Joomla or Drupal. This CMS must integrate with all areas of our site.

Languages
Web site should be able to detect the user’s interface language and deliver all content in that language (for certain languages). The web site should also provide on every page the ability for user to select their native language.

Calendar Function
User needs to be able to search a database of instructors by a variety of factors and view their calendars, as well as view calendars for available courses in the virtual classroom. We anticipate that this calendar function could serve purposes for both the virtual classroom as well as the 1-on-1 tutoring sessions.

Social Networking site
We want to integrate an already-existing social network platform “branded” into our web site so that it has same look and feel as our website (i.e. users are unaware that they are actually leaving our site and working through another social networking site). Currently we are considering using Elgg and several others. We want to customize the features/menu of the selected platform to our site to the extent possible. We want for users to be able to search for other users based on a variety of criteria.

Virtual Classroom- Group Classes
The virtual classroom (using a program such as dimdim) would provide a place for group lessons available to all members and accessed from the main student page within our Moodle site.

Tutoring
In addition to the self-paced lessons and the virtual classroom group lessons that will be available to students, private tutoring will also be available. As part of this tutoring feature we anticipate needing three major elements: tutor profile page (available for both nonmembers and members), scheduling options for students to schedule sessions with a tutor, and a virtual classroom (like the same as the technology used for the group classes).

E-Commerce
Users must be able to sign up and pay for course(s) online. Monthly membership payments will be made as well as additional payments for 1-on-1 tutoring as requested. When a member joins, they will sign up and their credit card will be charged for the monthly fee. Their credit card will be continued to be charged each month until they cancel the service (we would notify them of this charge).

Self-Paced Custom Study Plan through Tellmmore.com Software Use- By joining our site, students are issued a license to this self-paced software accessible through our Moodle site as a SCORM package. When users sign into Moodle, this will be a single sign on with the Auralog Tellmemore software. We will be branding this software to match our site.

Guided Tours (Captivate)
On the main page of Bright World, we would like to include a guided tour that we will produce ourselves.

CRM Integration
User’s information should be captured in a CRM, such as SugarCRM or Salesforce.com.

Please send brief responses to the following questions, as well as your past project experience (including work samples) to: megabrady@gmail.com

Questions:
What experience do you have in doing Moodle integrations and customizations, including customized interface designs?
Which social networking platforms do you have experience with, and to what extent has your experience involved customization of the platform for a website?
What Content Management Systems do you have experience with?
What is your experience with E-Commerce in web site development?

Language Learning Communities

Experienced Drupal Developer | RAFT

bbenone@drupal.org — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:46:02 +0000

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Coding: Most of your time will be spent developing code. Our application relies heavily on Drupal and its APIs and toolsets. You will be working on a large Drupal multi-site application that uses over 100 modules and has over 100,000 lines of custom code.
Technical Decisions: You will be expected to help drive the direction of development for our application and the general technical direction of the company. You will be expected to make and suggest decisions regarding your code and others.
Cooperating: We are a team environment, and cooperation and communication are a must. You will be working with other developers, and testers. You will be expected to be well versed with what others are doing and be available to divert your efforts to help others when the need arises.
Growing: Last but not least, we expect you to move up. We are a young company with a small workforce. The lines of responsibility are often blurred, and all of our staff are encouraged to try things that may be outside their normal areas of expertise.

REQUIREMENTS

Drupal development experience. Strong knowledge of development APIs, and security architecture is a necessity.
Strong knowledge of PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, AJAX, and other web technologies.
Ideally, applicants will have a history of contributions on drupal.org or other Drupal community/user group websites.
Telecommuting is OK, but we prefer candidates able to work in either our New Hampshire office or in the San Francisco area.

Applicants must have a very strong work ethic and be willing to keep up with a fast paced, Rapid Application Development environment. As a startup company we rely heavily on the dependability and initiative of our employees to get work done under sometimes aggressive deadlines. The work is challenging and rewarding. Ideal candidates will be outspoken when it comes to expressing ideas and will be able to give and accept constructive criticism well. A good sense of humor is also required.

ABOUT US

RAFT is a small but growing startup company that specializes in providing tools for use in scientific laboratory research, primarily in academic institutions. Our main product is a full scale end-to-end application that uses the Drupal CMS to enable our user community to better manage their compliance and research needs. We have been using Drupal for three years and hope to become a player in the Drupal community.

Competitive compensation + equity in a well positioned startup.

Please contact jobs@bioraft.com if interested, and view our other opportunities online.

Research and academia

OAI dataprovider support for learning repositories

aalamaki — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:49:35 +0000

Hi all,

We have now completed the design and testing for the OAI dataprovider module on learning repositories discussed at http://groups.drupal.org/node/13287

We have registered as a dataprovider at the OAI website and the module in action can be previewed at http://www.jem-thematic.net/lom_oai

The list of features for the module along with the download of the module is available at http://www.jem-thematic.net/en/node/1102

Please test the module and reply any bugs here as a response to this post or over the contact form at http://www.jem-thematic.net/contact

Best regards, Antti Alamäki

Drupal in Education

case study: student progress/report card

yueyuezhou — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:04:11 +0000

1 user account (parents), multiple kids (may even be in the same class).

parent -> user with parent role
teacher -> user with teacher role
class -> group created by the teach, his/her student are the members (logically)
report card -> new node type

patent is allow to see the report card for his/her children only

how to model the student? and control the security?

Drupal in Education

Drupal 6 and Moodle

timmillwood — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:54:08 +0000

I am developing many new community sites in Drupal 6 and need to integrate them into Moodle for both user and data sharing.

Can anyone help?

Drupal in Education

consultant/tutor | PCH

MitchellCohen — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:22:27 +0000

New to Drupal and CSS and would like to develop K-12 site, using CivicRM for list managment. I need guidance in theme selection and modification, CSS, and creating Books for publications on the sites using standard format. I use CIVICRM for calendar and memberships and would need help modifiying how the data is shown and accessed. The database is already established in MySQL.

I could work on-site in Manhattan or through IM, chat, or video conferencing.

Please provide experience, examples of work, and rate. Reply to Mitchell@Pchealth.org.

New York City