Earlier this week, I started building a learning platform for my final course project.
I am following a series of directions and inspiration from a variety of places. On the pedagogical side, this includes:
- careful consideration of the role of the instructor in the course
- working towards open pedagogy. I admit, this approach seems a bit daunting for a new educator, but it is also the most exciting as I feel it can lead to transformative learning experiences. If I were tasked with a project such as this in one of my grad classes, it probably would have been a game -changer. Instead of consuming knowledge, you are helping to create it. This approach strongly resonates with me, and is one of the reasons why I (want to) teach.
- course design considerations, which leads to the space where pedagogy and technology meet
Representing the technical side:
- I liked the look and feel of the ocTEL 2014 offering. It ran with WordPress and BuddyPress, powered by Martin Hawksey.
- Alan Levine’s detailed posts that show how to set up Feed WordPress.
I plan to blog about each of the steps along the way, with post creation loosely based on the #ds106 guide. We are also tasked with creating a syllabus and one learning module. I can’t wait to play around with the syllabus. I’ve had Maha’s post bookmarked for a while…in fact, specifically for this assignment. There’s some great links in it that I want to explore as well – particularly Michelle Pacansky-Brock’s liquid syllabus.
It sounds like other students may be interested in using WordPress to build a course. I hope they do go for it – it will be fun to work through it together and share ideas back and forth.