Teaching Writing, Collaboration, and Engagement in Global Contexts: The Drupal Alternative to Proprietary Courseware
This afternoon, Samantha Blackmon, David Blakesley, and I will be giving a presentation at Purdue University's 2005 Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) Conference. View the Shockwave version or download the original OpenOffice presentation format. This presentation is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
Also, below are some of the many Drupal sites being used for teaching this semester in the English department at Purdue. For most instructors, this is the first time teaching with Drupal. With others, this is the first time working with any online course management platform. Their responses so far about using Drupal have been very positive; I look forward to seeing how everyone's Drupal teaching practices evolve and develop over this semester and in the future.
- http://joe.english.purdue.edu/sp05/blackmon2/
- http://joe.english.purdue.edu/sp05/blakesley1/
- http://joe.english.purdue.edu/sp05/bousquet1/
- http://joe.english.purdue.edu/sp05/damore1/
- http://joe.english.purdue.edu/sp05/haynes2/
- http://joe.english.purdue.edu/sp05/lowe1/
- http://joe.english.purdue.edu/sp05/lowe2/
- http://joe.english.purdue.edu/sp05/mcgeady1/
- http://joe.english.purdue.edu/sp05/shuler1/
- http://joe.english.purdue.edu/sp05/shuler2/
- http://joe.english.purdue.edu/sp05/you1/
- http://joe.english.purdue.edu/sp05/zamierowski1/
also posted to drupal.org
http://drupal.org/node/17423
Drupal newbie
I found the online version of your presentation on Drupal very interesting. this is the first time I've heard about Drupal. From a logistical standpoint, can instructors download this to their computers and immediately start using it, or is something only a server/network administrator can download/use, etc.? thanks.
Drupal is server-based
You'd need a server to install it on. Drupal lists the system requirements here. For instructors that want their own Drupal site but do not have anyone at the institution that will host and/or install it for them, OpenSourceHost is a commercial hosting service that will install Drupal for free with an account.
Additionally, because of Drupal's versatility, it requires some work to configure the site appropriately for a specific web use once it is installed. Think of it as a large box of Legos that offers many possibilities. Someone new to content management systems will find it difficult to imagine the possibilities and will also need to learn Drupal-specific configuration options. For a distribution of Drupal that comes with a configuration wizard that offers some pre-configurations, try CivicSpace.
Feel free to contact me if you have any other questions.
Thanks
Thanks! The Legos metaphor was helpful.
incsub.org
You can test out a number of educational apps like Drupal at http://incsub.org/ for free. This is a great service run by James Farmer in Australia.
design
The flash presentation was really very cool. I just created a drupal site on my osh account for the US chapter of the Association for Commonwealth Lit and Lang Studies, and I'd be interested in giving it a more "original" spin: www.usaclals.org. I'd also be interested in providing websites for the other branches of the organization that have no sites--S. African, W. African, Sri Lankan, etc. Drupal is amazing in that it sucks up virtually no memory (pardon the pun) and allows such freedom in design. I'm also learning to apply this to my teaching of visual rhetoric (and learning by fire how to curb my own errors). Very educational for those who haven't tried it.