About This Report
If you weren't able to attend the July 2009 Sakai Conference in Boston or if you weren't able to attend all of the sessions you were interested in, this report can help you catch up on some of what you missed. It begins with a brief overview of the conference and a perspective on signs of maturity within the Sakai Community. The rest of the document contains session summaries that are based on notes taken by rSmart staff members at presentations that are likely to be of interest to many of our clients and partners.
Where to Find Recordings and Presentation Materials
Our notes cover only a small percentage of the presentations. Luckily, at every conference the Sakai community gets better at sharing videos, presentation materials, and recordings for you to view at your convenience. Here are some key places to look for this valuable material.
- Vimeo has a repository of reasonably high quality video recordings of select conference presentations (e.g., keynotes).
- Many presenters have uploaded their presentation slides to slideshare.
- Dozens of slide presentations, sets of presenters' notes, and other materials are available in the Sakai wiki.
- A number of people volunteered to be "citizen journalists" in order to capture key points during the conference. Their recordings are available on YouTube.
- More than two dozen videos of conference presentations are available on uStream.
Sometimes it takes a few weeks for presenters to post their materials. If you don't see anything for a presentation you're interested in, please check back occasionally to see if it's been posted.
Enjoy!
General Observations and Perspectives
A Great Event
Reflections by Mike Zackrison, Vice President of Marketing, rSmart
This year's Sakai Conference was a great event for many reasons. First, with over 500 attendees it was the largest Sakai conference to date in terms of attendance. Many sessions were standing-room only, the ballroom hosting the keynote sessions was full to capacity, and the hallways were buzzing with excitement. Of the 500 attendees, between 35 and 40 percent were first-time attendees, and about 30 percent of attendees were faculty and instructional design staff (actual users—even some students!), which is very different from the earliest conferences at which developers dominated the attendance rolls.
Second, the types of institutions represented at the conference demonstrate the wide appeal that Sakai now has. From Oxford University in the UK to Chadron State College in northwest Nebraska, Sakai is proving valuable to all kinds of institutions. Many representatives from K-12 were also in attendance. Sakai has certainly grown in its ability to serve the needs of a broad array of educational organizations.
Finally, there was a collegial feeling that pervaded the conference. Colleagues were seen helping colleagues with many issues from development work to implementation planning. The sharing of expertise, ideas, and outreached hands were hallmarks of this year's conference that we'll not soon forget. rSmart is pleased to be a part of such a vibrant and growing community.
Sakai's New Maturity
Reflections by Nate Angell, Client Evangelist, rSmart
The Sakai project and our community have reached a new level of maturity. Recently, several new developments came together at the Boston conference suggesting Sakai has risen to new levels of achievement and organization.
Perhaps the most compelling evidence was the keynote presentations by this year's winners of the Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award, who demonstrated what we all know, yet sometimes forget: Sakai is a community dedicated to excellence in education, not technology. You can view presentations from TWSIA winners Andrea Crampton (Charles Sturt University) and Edith Sheffer (Stanford University).
The Sakai Foundation (SF) has also created two new staff positions that will together enable the SF to better coordinate and communicate our work in Sakai.
Long-time Sakai community member Clay Fenlason is the new Sakai Product Manager. Clay is an excellent choice to coordinate our community's already successful work to further develop Sakai as a coherent, reliable product with a meaningful roadmap. Pieter Hartsook joins our community as Sakai Communications Manager. Pieter will become an enormously valuable participant in our efforts to tell the Sakai story more effectively internally and externally. Read more about these new positions in SF Executive Director (ED) Michael Korcuska's blog.
Our new maturity is further demonstrated by the formation of a community-based Sakai Product Council, which will "ensure exceptional quality and cohesiveness of Sakai product releases in support of varied teaching, research and collaboration needs" in the words of SF ED Michael Korcuska. rSmart is proud to have one of our own—Client Evangelist Nate Angell—on the Council. As a councillor, Nate will help guide the Sakai product release process informed by the combined experience and needs of rSmart's many Sakai CLE clients.
Last but not least, our community has gathered new energy and definition for the development of our next-generation Sakai 3 release. The new Sakai Foundation positions and Product Council will help guide new product visioning in the community and new technologies to make Sakai 3 a truly transformational release. rSmart will join other community members to ensure that the upcoming Sakai 2.x releases maintain quality and incorporate new features while we work to ensure that the upgrade path to Sakai 3 is practical and smooth. We will continue to update you with more information about rSmart's focus on supporting Sakai 2 with an eye toward the Sakai 3 future.
Using Sakai Track
All Kids Online (Todos los chicos en la Red)
Presentation highlights by Jonny Brown, Sr. Information Architect, rSmart
Presenter
- Anibal Carmona, CEO, Unitech, anibalc@unitech.com.ar
Highlights
- Unitech is an award-winning public management consulting firm and Sakai commercial affiliate located in Argentina. The company works in many spheres, including education. At La Punta University, 20 of 90 employees work on Sakai. Most of the solutions Unitech chooses are open (except for Oracle, etc.).
- Unitech is one or many public and private entities engaged in 20-year plan to improve education in Argentina and channel it towards the demands of the new millennium. The company's role is to carry out the "All Kids Online" initiative, a program that provides a group of students with their own Classmate notebook computers and wi-fi so they are "plugged in" both at school and at home. These computers belong to the students (not to the school or the family) and can be used only for education. The goal is to improve computer literacy and improve kids' learning skills.
- The pilot project, which is taking place in a small province in Argentina, includes three groups of students that each receive a different level of technological support. In total 30 schools, 100 teachers, and 2500 students are participating. The group will eventually be expanded to include a total student population of 30,000.
- Sakai is the main toolset on the kids' computers. Unitech had to customize Sakai (internationalization, localization, restricted use, etc.) to meet the needs of the program. Their development team worked collaboratively on these customizations.
- Kids work collaboratively too. They rely heavily on Sakai communication tools.
- Teachers use email extensively for effective feedback. Administrators use Sakai Statistics to evaluate the amount of use computers receive.
- As part of the program, administrators test and measure kids' progress at various points. They evaluate progress in language and math in grades 3 and 6; 4th and 5th grades are being added this year. Initial testing showed significant improvements within three months.
- Teachers have had some difficulties but are optimistic about future use.
For More Information
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/CONF10/Wednesday+-+All+Kids+online
Strategies to Support Your Users: Custom Documentation and Help Files
Presentation highlights by Jonny Brown, Sr. Information Architect, rSmart
Presenters
- Matthieu Plourde, University of Delaware
- Jonathan Bolte, Indiana University
- Karen Campbell, Rutgers University
Support at Delaware
- Support workflow: Users contact the IT help center with questions. If the help center, which handles lots of systems, can't solve the issue, they create a trouble ticket that goes to the learning management team. A staff member at the help desk puts together lists of user questions for the learning management team's technical writer to address.
- When users ask about something that's been documented, the help desk staff provides the answer and tells them where on the support web site the info was available. By responding in this way, the help desk staff encourages users to research answers to questions online before contacting them.
- UD organizes help files and their support and training web site by user type (student, faculty/staff, etc). Information is also provided via handouts, FAQs, and videos. The UD help site is hosted outside of Sakai while the index/TOC for the content is on Sakai.
- UD's help looks similar to Sakai help and has tabs for getting started. UD's most extensive help coverage is in the Faculty/Staff help tab. From that tab, users can access Basics of Sakai@UD; information on educational principles and faculty stories (in text and on video); task-oriented instructions; and FAQs. These pages are heavily interlinked and provide links to other information as well.
- FAQs are divided into sections of about ten questions.
- You can view UD's help system here. It's well worth exploring.
Support at Rutgers
- Users (faculty, staff, and students) create their own sites, add rosters, choose tools, and add content. The support organization doesn't have enough staff to do these things for them, so users rely heavily on documentation.
- Rutgers provides resources to give users a chance to help themselves (find answers to questions) and teach themselves how to use tools, etc. The support team provides examples of ways to use Sakai and gives users ideas for new things to try.
- Rutgers is in the process of adding navigation between documents and creating one-page quick start guides for each tool. They would also like to provide example sites.
- Their help is available at https://sakai.rutgers.edu/portal.
Support at Indiana
- IU hosts a knowledge base for the generic Sakai product at https://www.indiana.edu/~sakaikb/. They also provide a separate system for help for On Course (IU's version of Sakai) at https://oncourse.iu.edu/portal.
- IU provides quickstarts for students as well as for faculty. Links in the IU help system go to the latest version of content on the repository so system administrators don't have to restart Sakai each time the support personnel change help.
Note: Numerous other presentation summaries are available to rSmart clients in RSN.
