Classroom Idea

[jg_macarthy]

Hello,


I know a big pain in the ass for teachers and students at my college is a central place on the net to meet. I am sick of teachers flooding my e-mail with messages. Cureently those teachers that use the net as a meeting place use Yahoo + Google groups which wasnt attractive because it isnt focued towards the task at hand, or a hard to use WebCT classroom(non-user friendly). I am thinking there needs to be a site where teachers and students can both log on and access critical classroom information via a interface tailored to them. Even class lists with e-mails to help group work would make the process more efficient. Teachers could simply create a classroom group and have an interface tailored for a teacher interacting with their students. (i.e. syllabus,slides,documents) Does this exist, is there a way to offer this as a free memebership site? Also, is there a way for teachers to start interaction with parents on line? I know a main problem when I was in grade school were report cards/progress reports never making it to parents?

[UpNorthPrince]

- Create a chat room for your school with mini rooms for classes.

- Create a database driven website where test / exam scores are kept and can be viewed online.Students will need identification to view their exam/test results online. Courtesy of themselves, they might share the access password with their parents.

- Create a database with mailing lists / groups

Side note: One of the certified method to jeopardise your school/college fun is to let your parents know 0-9 about your test/exam performance. Thats with a possible exception of few Einsteins who score 10/10 in every test. Nerds don't have fun anyway.

[jg_macarthy]

what do you think about restrictions like facebook used initially, by only allowing .edu e-mail addresses to keep activity within schools?

[buynick]

We use WebCT and Indiana University, and it works great, very user friendly. It has chat, discussion forum, grades, calendar, and the teacher can customize it with different folders like Classroom Readings and post articles, upload files, etc. If you don't think it's user friendly then you just need some training on how to use it.

[jg_macarthy]

yea true. I posted b/c I figured there would be someone in college who's school institutees it better. I think it is our teachers lack of use that makes it so bad here. Thanks Nick

[youngmoneyblog]

UF uses webct too.


www.campusopencourse.com

[buynick]

Our professors all have a mandatory training course on WebCT, so I think that helps.

[akula]

Hello,


I know a big pain in the ass for teachers and students at my college is a central place on the net to meet. I am sick of teachers flooding my e-mail with messages. Cureently those teachers that use the net as a meeting place use Yahoo + Google groups which wasnt attractive because it isnt focued towards the task at hand, or a hard to use WebCT classroom(non-user friendly). I am thinking there needs to be a site where teachers and students can both log on and access critical classroom information via a interface tailored to them. Even class lists with e-mails to help group work would make the process more efficient. Teachers could simply create a classroom group and have an interface tailored for a teacher interacting with their students. (i.e. syllabus,slides,documents) Does this exist, is there a way to offer this as a free memebership site? Also, is there a way for teachers to start interaction with parents on line? I know a main problem when I was in grade school were report cards/progress reports never making it to parents?

blackboard.com has made a 100 million dollar business from what you're talking about

it's a good opportunity, a very good opportunity, and it takes a strong team to execute it

[buynick]

Diane Rehm just had a great show on NPR about Online Classrooms, you can listen to the pod cast at:
http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/06/11/13.php#12297