Teaching and Learning: User Concerns

Transition from MyUCDavis to Sakai

• How will content be moved? Automatically? Will we get CD's to back up or old site?
• Having to fish out the URLs for resources on a Sakai page to place in a wiki or web content tool is not userfriendly. There should be an easy automated process to link resources into respective tools.
• There is a potential complication when linking html files made in dreamweaver. Once must be certain that the filetype is "html" or "htm" and link accordingly.
• What sorts of classes will be automatically supported by Sakai this Fall whose limitations will not prevent or preclude Sakais use Many class that wants to separate student work by section for discussions, chat, assignments, drop box and even resources cannot do so unless they choose to put every section into a different Sakai site. Any class that wants to separate student work by section for discussions, chat, assignments, drop box and even resources cannot do so unless they choose to put every section into a different Sakai site. If you want a quick guideline then you can say that classes considering the use of Sakai should consult with the Sakai support group for advice on how and when it will be feasible to use Sakai in their specific context.
• Sakai is not 508 Compliant. This poses problems as far as accessibility lawsuits go. There is a discussion group on this that we could review. Rick Hill in Engineering cares about this topic and is willing to help test.

Tools

• How do we explain the new tools to faculty unfamiliar with them? (e.g. wiki)

  Wiki

  7 Things You Should Know About Wikis: a most useful (and concise) document put out by Educause.
• Can users have more than one wiki? Currently you can accomplish something like this by making the first page of your wiki a list of the various pages/sections/classes that you want to have. For example, the first page could link to your physics wiki, your biology wiki, and your personal wiki. This way you have seperate locations for each wiki's organization. You may have to be careful with naming pages, however. You can't have two pages named "assignments." You would specify a page name as "physics assignments" or "biology assignments."
• What if two people try to edit a Wiki page at the same time? If a wiki page is edited by two people at approximately the same time, the first person to submit the edit will change the wiki content. The second person attempting to edit the page will receive a message stating that the wiki page has been updated with new content.
• What if you've developed a wiki you feel is complete? Can you then convert it into a finished hard copy document, handout, or reader? In many ways this depends on the wiki you have created. If the wiki only has a few pages, you can copy the text into Microsft Word and reformat it. Alternatively, you could bring HTML code into DreamWeaver. If you have a more complicated wiki, a spidering tool may be necessary. Can anyone else provide a better solution to this request?
• Can we use a different wiki tool?
• Can someone clarify the instructions for rWiki? For example, see the instructions for making certain text link to an outside URL. Most instructors will not be able to interpret this.
• How do you delete Wiki pages? How do you start a wiki over from scratch? Removing the tool and re-adding it doesn't do the trick.
• When trying to delete a wiki page (in the apparent absence of this function) if the user (me) deselects "viewable/edit" priveleges on a certain page, it appears that the user effectively locks himself out of his/her own wiki. We probably should not allow users to accidently delete their own priveleges. As a related question: Is there any way to get priveleges back to edit my own home wiki page?
• The edit button could be moved to a more intuitive/appropriate location. "Edit" (an action item) is buried in a frame primarily dedicated to navigation. Thus "editing" seems related to "going somewhere else." This fundamental conflict will likely confuse users unfamiliar with the concept of wiki.

  Quiz Builder

• Can instructors provide feedback on quizbuilder programs?
• Can instructors add images in their quizes?
• Make sure the Quiz Builder allows for an instructors specific needs. For example, someone who teaches "Ear Learners" (those people who learned english merely by hearing it spoken) may require specific Quiz Builder functionality. What are some of these special requirements?

  Forum/Discussion

• Articulate the difference between forum/discussion messages and private message: Private messages don't allow for threading and the forum/discussion topics can be estagblished only by those with requisite permission

  Message Center

• Could spam be a problem?
• It could be confusing to students and instructors that email comes from different sources (Message Center vs. email vs. Geckomail).

  Roles

• Switching to the student's view.
• Giving TA access to your personal workspace
• Guest Access

Customization

• Resorting the buttons on the left.
• Adding MyUCDavis-style channels
• Adding dynamic content: Here is the following workaround: Removing the announcement and chat tools will remove their respective boxes off the main (default) page. In the remaining box, direct the content of this page to a URL or dreamweaver page. (NOTE: the top button tool is the one that will apppear on the front/default page.)
• Can we incorporate Breeze?
• When you input Web content to a frame, that content (if right or left aligned) pushes up within one to two pixels of the border. From a design perspective, this isn't very pleasing to the eye. Is there some way to set the frame-padding, so text sits nicely centered in the center of the boxes, instead of almost touching?
• When you add a Web Conent button named "Implementation Timeline" the button gets expanded to fill two lines; however, if you use the name "Training and Support" the "r" and "t" in support get blocked by the right-facing, blue arrow.

  Sections

• Combining Sections

Drop-Box

• When asked to submit homework assignments, one FMFP member found that only 1/2 the students could figure out how to accomplish the task.

Potential FAQs

• Problem: URLs can't have spaces. Solution: Replace them with underscores.

Pedagogy

• If everyone starts recording Podcasts, will this make coming to class useless? Will nobody show up? How will lectures have to change? (Textbook->Class model changes to Pocast Lecture+Text ->Discussion)