Curriculum Mapping
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This document discusses developing a curriculum mapping system for Monarch Academy using Drupal. It begins with an overview of curriculum mapping and its benefits for various stakeholders. It then discusses choosing Drupal as the platform due to its extensibility through custom modules and themes. Goals for the new system include usability for different user groups, integration of social and rich media features, and clearly communicating information. Next steps involve further research, prototyping, and developing an initial version of the system with plans for future refinement.
Curriculum Mapping
- 1. Information Culture From Online Education to Social Media to Curriculum Mapping Information Culture
- 2. Information Culture Topics Presented 1 The History of Online Learning 2 Drupal Open Source Application Framework 3 Technology Impacts on Media 4 Gamification within Education and Advanced Simulations 5 Motion Graphics and Conveying a Message 6 Web Development Future Career – Approaching the Semantic Web 7 Usability – A Case Study of a User Research Project 8 Web 2.0, Social Networking and Social Media in General Information Culture Page 2
- 3. Information Culture The Digital Divide Addressing the Challenges In this current day and age we are witnessing the advancement of technology at a rate never seen before. As a result, people are relying on technology to a greater extent each and every day. According to DiMaggio et al, “The digital revolution is the first major technological change that has occurred after the emergence of federal social science funding and the expansion of research universities in the 1960s (2004). * http://forrestdoud.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/digital-divide-versus-digital-inequality/ Information Culture Page 3
- 4. Information Culture Pew Internet Research: Findings While increased internet adoption and the rise of mobile connectivity have reduced many gaps in technology access over the past decade, for some groups digital disparities still remain One in five American Adults do not use the Internet Senior citizens, those who prefer to take our interviews in Spanish rather than English, adults with less than a high school education, and those living in households earning less than $30,000 per year are the least likely adults to have internet access. Among adults who do not use the internet, almost half don‟t go online because they don‟t think the internet is relevant to them. Most have never used the internet before, and don‟t have anyone in their household who does. The 27% of adults living with disability in the U.S are significantly less likely than adults without a disability to go online (54% vs. 81%). Though overall internet adoption rates have leveled off, significant differences in use remain, generally related to age, household income, and educational attainment. * http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Digital-differences/Overview.aspx Information Culture
- 5. Information Culture Moving on to Curriculum Mapping Information Culture Page 5
- 6. Information Culture Curriculum Mapping What is Curriculum Mapping? Process of documenting lessons, activities and assessment methods used within different grade levels and classes within an educational institution. In recent years web-based technology solutions have been implemented to provide real-time access to vital curriculum data and reports, enabling school administration to ensure there are no gaps between grade levels. Information Culture Page 6
- 7. Information Culture Curriculum Mapping – Targeting all User Groups School Administrators Teachers Parents and Relatives A dashboard system can Curriculum Mapping systems By providing an accessible provide administrators a can provide teachers a tool to system, it is easier to can means to be able to manage update, document and share keep track of where their child curriculum across grade lesson plans with others. should be academically. levels. Common core standards are Parents and guardians will Management of learning more easily tracked to ensure have an opportunity to outcomes and learning lessons are fulfilling the reinforce at home the focus of opportunities across different required objectives. learning that takes place at elements of the curriculum. school. * Proposed Curriculum Mapping Application Information Culture Page 7
- 8. Information Culture Monarch Academy Research Study Monarch Academy has informally implemented a form of Curriculum Mapping using desktop applications. The current system has not been centralized, nor easily accessible by staff and administrators. Commercial tools were researched; however none met the unique requirements of Expeditionary Learning. Atlas Rubicon came closest to meeting the school‟s requirements. Information Culture Page 8
- 9. Information Culture Atlas Rubicon and Oakland School System Atlas is a Web-based curriculum management tool that electronically: Incorporates curriculum mapping, tracks gaps and repetition in instruction, addresses the Why in performance testing, aligns curriculum to benchmarks and standards, produces updated reports to encourage partnerships, facilitates sharing of ideas and communicating them rapidly across buildings, schools and grades and shares requirements with students. Oakland Public School system has implemented Atlas Rubicon for all grade levels. They provide a public website for parents and guardians to review courses, units and other curriculum information. In a separate study I am testing the current system that Oakland uses as an exploratory study in determining what works well and what doesn‟t in the current system. Information Culture Page 9
- 10. Information Culture Planning the Ideal Curriculum Mapping System Building, testing and deploying a workable solution for Monarch Academy by quarter 1 of 2014. Building Choosing an architecture based on either an existing framework or technology stack. Choosing Architecture Exploratory Research, Requirements Gathering and Proposal Acceptance. Gathering Initial Exploratory Research Information Culture Page 10
- 11. Information Culture Choosing the Right Architecture A custom built application could be developed using ColdFusion, ASP.NET or PHP. Provides greatest flexibility in design and development choices along with a greater sense of ownership. Potentially take a much longer time to develop than building from a ready-made solution. Content Management Systems are a good alternative to building a custom solution as much of the heavy lifting has been taken care of. Many CMS‟es are not intuitive in terms of customization and may impose limitations on development. While a CMS can typically be deployed in a shorter amount of time than a custom solution, the down-side of being placed in a „box‟ is deal-breaker for many. Information Culture Page 11
- 12. Information Culture Drupal – Bridging the Development Gap What is Drupal? Drupal is a CMS for Building Dynamic Websites Similar to other CMS solutions, Drupal allows you to easily setup and deploy a dynamic website solution out of the box. Drupal is an Application Framework Extensive API and Hook system allows for rapid development of custom modules, themes and add-on APIs for developers. Drupal is a PHP based CMS/Framework. Drupal is a Social and Semantic Web Platform Tools have been built into Drupal including support for Resource Description Framework (RDF) to enable sharing of data with different web sources. Content type choices and descriptions are presented when the Drupal is a Community editor selects to add new content to The Drupal Community is extremely active, especially in the the site. Washington DC Metro area with conferences, frequent meetups and local user groups. Information Culture Page 12
- 13. Information Culture How Drupal Compares to other CMS‟s WordPress was primarily built as a blogging engine and later developed into a CMS. It is great for developing small to medium sized websites, however it was never built to scale as an enterprise level CMS. Drupal assumes at its core there will be many kinds of users with many requirements. At its core, WordPress on the other hand was developed only for one type of user in mind and later adapted accordingly. Drupal provides more extensive development framework for many different types of websites: blogs, forums, e-commerce, CRM, intranets, social networks, news aggregators, wikis, photo galleries, restaurant review sites. Joomla is arguably a better product „out-of-the-box‟ as it provides much of the expected advanced features of a CMS already built-in. Drupal on the other hand is limited out-of-the-box, however it provides a more extensive framework for developing a more advanced site. “On the same grounds, if you can master it, Drupal 7.0 is the best CMS” Information Culture Page 13
- 14. Information Culture Drupal Provides for Extensive Customizability Use Existing Modules Write Custom Code Drupal has an extensive library Next you will want to develop of „contrib‟ modules which are your own custom modules to readily available for download fill in spaces of missing and customization into any functionality or improve upon Drupal installation via existing contrib modules. drupal.org. Select modules for „some‟ functionality. Configure the Site Theme it Site configuration can be an ongoing Theming can occur in parallel to process which will increase with other development activities. complexity dependent on the amount Drupal‟s theming engine also of modules, size of site, user role, provides extensions to the permissions, content types, etc. modules. Information Culture Page 14
- 15. Information Culture Goals / Considerations for a Drupal-Based Curriculum Mapping Application Should be usable by the target audiences on the target devices. Usability Consideration should be made for different user groups. Where possible, integration of technologies like Facebook Connect The Social Web should be examined. Gamification, motion graphics and rich media are all topics that should Rich Media be considered when presenting a framework for lesson plans, Experience outcomes and information to potential parents, guardians and interested stakeholders. The system should convey the appropriate messages it needs to assert Communication through the various user groups. Collaboration, sharing or resources of Information and dashboard reporting all should be considered. Information Culture Page 15
- 16. Information Culture Next Steps Complete proposal, begin working with stakeholders and Carry out contextual Complete version 1 of create a development inquiry, focus groups, the system and begin plan. and user interviews. planning for version 2. Build and test an initial Refine prototype and prototype of the begin development proposed system. version 1 of the application based on feedack. Information Culture Page 16
- 17. Information Culture Concluding Thoughts Information Culture provided insight into several areas of digital media that I will be considered during the development of Monarch‟s Curriculum Mapping System. Areas of research go outside the scope of this presentation, next semester Proseminar will flesh out theorical framework for the project and study. If the application becomes a success with Monarch, plans to release the code under open source via a distribution method such as GitHub will be explored. Information Culture Page 17
- 18. Questions? Information Culture Page 18