Archive for June 2, 2009

Richard | June 30, 2009
One comment

PNAIS TechShare Conference

I just returned from three days at the PNAIS TechShare conference, located in the foothills of Mt. Hood. It was a great conference. Though very small (maybe 35 attendees), we attracted a critical mass of teachers, kept the conversation focused on teaching and learning, and enjoyed the retreat-like atmosphere of a resort hotel. Gaining face time with Northwest colleagues we usually only “see” through email was most valuable. I picked up a lot of useful sites and tools to support our global education initiatives and made several contacts at other schools who are doing very interesting work. Best of all, I shared the experience with two colleagues from my school, which should really help with implementation of these ideas this year. Go TechShare!

We did devote an hour’s time to discussion of open source software. Interestingly, the conversation was not much different from similar talks two years ago. A lot of tech staff are still struggling with how to take the first steps to exploring open source software in their schools, and the categories of desktop, server, and web open-source software are mixed without much discrimination. I don’t fully understand why open-source technologies are not treated like other new technologies. You find the time to learn it because it’s interesting, your users are curious, and it has the potential to really help your operations. If it’s strategically important to your school, then you find the time to study it. I hope that we may one day take this conversation to the next level within our community of northwest schools.

Wow, has the Apple revolution arrived to the state of Washington! A number of schools are now wrestling with Mac client-Windows network integration, as students have begun to show up on campus with MacBooks. A whole bunch of conference attendees sported iPhones (and complained about the spotty signal reception at the resort)!

We maintained our global ed theme throughout most of the conference. The best part for me was learning what interesting global trips other schools have undertaken (Seattle Academy, Overlake, Northwest Academy, Lakeside, among others). However, when I asked the teacher group how many had tried a virtual exchange, no hands went up! Maybe the right people weren’t in the room, but I was surprised at the lack of virtual exchanges. Thankfully, the group received my presentation about our Gaza City Skype chat very well, and perhaps one or two will give it a try this year.

After a lovely retreat and conference experience up in the woods, I return to help launch our new web site tomorrow! Hopefully, by the end of day, you will see a whole new look and functionality at www.catlin.edu.

Category: Curricular integration | Tags: ,
Richard | June 12, 2009
One comment

Curriculum map in Drupal

Two weeks to go until live! This week, I migrated our school curriculum map from a custom system I authored into Drupal. This allows us to ensure the longevity of this web site resource, take advantage of Drupal’s strengths in structuring content storage and display, and provide teachers with a very usable editing interface. The curriculum map stores over a thousands nodes and can be added to an existing Drupal site. This article assumes familiarity with Drupal 6 views, content construction kit, blocks, and very basic custom function programming. This isn’t a step-by-step tutorial (maybe one day).

Curriculum map course content type holds courses. The description field is not yet populated but available for course descriptions. Taxonomy categories for division, grades, and subjects are applied to this content type. A node reference field is used to connect each curriculum map course node to as many curriculum map units as necessary. The autocomplete node reference widget is used to allow the user to re-order the units as desired. It may be difficult for a user to find the correct unit node using autocomplete if it is not named creatively. It may be a good upgrade to use a view to display more identifying information than the title for the autocomplete search.

Curriculum map unit content type has a textarea field for each curriculum map category. We use the following: essential questions, habits of mind, content, skills and processes, assessment, resources, multicultural dimension, and integrated learning. In retrospect, having so many categories created a lot of work for teachers, who had to populate some of these categories x each unit x each course they teach.

We authored module cgs_curriculum_map.module to migrate content from our old system into Drupal. It creates content and unit nodes, establishes node reference links between them, populates content fields, and attaches taxonomy terms. This is not necessary for schools starting a curriculum map from scratch.

When the system displays a curriculum map course node, the units also load in a table below the course description. This is accomplished by loading a block view that displays the curriculum map category content for each unit node referenced in the course node. The view is loaded into the content_bottom template region, so that it appears just below the course description field. A simple function in cgs_curriculum_map.module returns a + delimited list of node ids of the unit nodes attached to the currently loaded course node. The display setting for the node reference field in the course content type is set to hidden to prevent unit links from appearing above the unit content itself.

If a user wants to display a single unit in a more readable form, one may link the unit title to its node. The conventional node CCK field display presents fairly well.

A page view with exposed filters lists courses, so that a user may view courses in the desired divisions, grades, or subjects. This is a good starting point for a user.

The user interface for adding new units is currently weak. It would be clever to load the curriculum map unit node add form in a lightbox above the curriculum map course page, so that a teacher could create a new unit on the fly and still have it show up in the node reference autocomplete field. Also, some node edit form elements are named in such a way that may confuse teachers. For example, the edit tab on the curriculum map course node page will likely be construed as providing editing access to the unit nodes (you actually have to view the unit before you can edit it).

I am currently having difficulty using both arguments and filters together. The argument limits the initial course list to a single division in the division pages, but the filters attach additional criteria using ? arguments. When both exist, the view returns no nodes. It may be that the view is applying terms from one taxonomy to the other, where they don’t exist, causing the empty result set.

Use pathauto on the curriculum map content types and menu block visibility to load the correct secondary navigation menu when the view is displaying curriculum map entries.

curriculum map list view

curriculum map course view

Category: Programming | Tags: , , ,
Richard | June 2, 2009
2 comments

Web Site Strategy

Here is a quick run-down of some key ideas underlining our new web site strategy.

Site goals

The site has two overarching goals:

Provide timely, useful information that school constituents are seeking.

Regularly transmit the key messages that drive our communication strategy.

Guiding Principles

Authenticity: our target audiences are sensitive to the authenticity of our message. We benefit by demonstrating transparency in our communications and providing a “window” into daily life in the school. Ruth Catlin envisioned the school as a “lab” that would share its teaching accomplishments broadly.

Timeliness: web site visitors expect site content to be up-to-date and useful in the present moment. Many visitors come to the site expecting to find information to help them meet a deadline, attend an event, or find out what just happened in the school community.

Engagement: community members once gained entrance to this community. The site should attempt to move individuals up the “engagement pyramid.” It should provide tools for users to provide information to the school, communicate with employees, and network with each other. Highly engaged members of the community contribute to the school’s success through attendance at school events, volunteerism, financial contributions, and spreading the good word.

Excellence: our school attempts to perform at a high level in all its pursuits. The site should itself demonstrate excellence in design and function and also communicate examples of excellence that take place within the school. Admittedly, this desire for excellence sometimes rubs up against our equally strong desire for authenticity.

Site objectives

Develop a graphic design and user interface that conveys the vibrancy and excellence of this institution and is also easy to navigate and use. Choose colors to pay tribute to the classic Catlin blue but make central use of the new, Crane-provided color palette.

Broadly publish photos of everyday life and special events at the school. Most schools only display carefully staged, professional photos on their home page. We deliberately publish shots of everyday life and special events in order to convey the vibrancy of school life, the authenticity of our communications, the informality of our school culture, and to provide motivation for repeat visits. We will also convert the random-select home page photo into a proper slideshow and retain the current grid view for photo galleries elsewhere in the site.

Limit the cash cost of the new site to less than $10,000.

Make athletics schedules and driving directions easy to access and subscribe to.

Make lunch menu information easy to access and subscribe to.

Make it possible for many people at the school to contribute content to the web site. “Content managers” will receive training and maintain the core pages on the site. Teachers will have the ability to post classroom news, which will be aggregated into division-level news pages. Teachers and students will also have individual blogs, in order to publish examples of their work should they choose to do so.

Launch our social network and media initiatives at the same time as the new school web site. Continue to develop our Facebook presence to share highlight news items, audio and video captured at school, and community-contributed content. Further develop and call attention to our LinkedIn presence, so that it takes over as our primary “career network” tool. invite parents and students to join the network (currently only alumni are involved). Launch new Twitter and YouTube channels in order to reach our constituents where they are, exert more influence over messaging about Catlin Gabel in those spaces, and create the opportunity for a viral media success.

Broaden the publication of News feeds to the entire site. News items will appear on the home page as they do at present, but they will also be archived permanently (unless deleted), allowing users to get a sense of the rhythm of school life over weeks and months. Newsflash items will automatically appear in other relevant sections of the site (e.g., alumni, arts). Each program, department, division, and classroom may have its own dedicated news feed, which will show both Newsflash and staff-contributed items. This will increase the timeliness of these content sections and “unbury” new content items. The web site manager will be able to select and promote smaller news feed items to the home page Newsflash if desired. Allow users to set up customized news subscriptions by RSS or email.

Provide forms to collect important data from constituents, increasing usability, accuracy, and efficiency. Users will be able to complete online forms to start the admission process, make an online gift, apply for a job, or update their contact information. The school benefits by making life easy for its constituents, receiving accurate data, and not having to collect it through more time-consuming processes.

Provide an opt-out alumni directory that alumni, employees, parents, and students may search. Provide employee and student photo directories to other employees and students only. Automatically generate directories and contact lists from our core school databases, eliminating the need for manual data entry of this information by school staff on the site.

Broaden the visibility of Caller articles on the site. Cross-list them in relevant sections through the site (e.g., a Caller article on sports also appears in the Athletics section of the site). Use Issuu.com to embed a Flash-based version of each Caller in the site, increasing readability of the articles, allowing the user to print an issue, and leveraging the school’s investment in graphic design and layout services for this publication.

Get All School News and division newsletters out of PDFs and into web page and email format. Retain the distinctive, individual character of division newsletters.

Provide a straightforward process for parents, alumni, admission applicants, and job applicants to create a login on the site that gets them access to relevant content and tools.

Enable the posting of comments by employees, students, and parents. Limit the viewing of comments to these same groups. Do not enable comment moderation queues but rather follow comment posts closely and intervene in exceptional cases.

Provide a clear navigation pathway for people new to Catlin Gabel to learn basic information about the school and receive key messages.

Improve site navigation for parents, who have provided feedback that the items of interest to them are scattered all over the site.

Provide “quick links,” so that many programs may have a ubiquitous link for them without cluttering up the primary site navigation.

Create a “schoolwide” or “all school” top-level section to draw attention to the many, growing schoolwide programs that mark the distinctive nature of the school (e.g., sustainable school, global ed, the arts).

Make it easy to post and sign up for volunteer opportunities. Make it possible for a user to see all available opportunities in one place.

Perpetuate the distinctive qualities of our four divisions by providing separate top-level sections and news feed categories.

Reduce the number of email list errors by providing central parentsxxxx@catlin.edu listserv addresses automatically synced to our school databases.

Category: Design | Tags: , , ,