Technology Enhanced Learning Introduction to Sulis Collaborative Learning Environment for Teaching and Learning
What is it? Sakai is often referred as a learning platform virtual learning environment (VLE) course management system (CMC) learning management system (LMS) or collaborative learning environment (CLE) Designed to facilitate technology enhanced teaching, learning, communication and collaboration (e-learning)
Glossary (1) Sakai (www.sakaiproject.org) is Sakai is an online environment designed to facilitate technology enhanced teaching, learning, communication and collaboration Sakai is a free and open source product that is built and maintained by the Sakai community.
Glossary (2) The rsmart Group (www.rsmart.com) is a full-service provider of open source applications for education based in US. rsmart hosts Sakai for UL and provides technical support
Glossary (3) Sulis is the brand for Sakai at UL Celtic goddess of transformation and initiation; source of vision and wisdom; nourishment and inspiration in Ireland and pre-roman Britain. When the Romans encountered her in Britain, they equated her with their Minerva. Later identified with Saint Brigid. Leigh Ann Hussey (1998), from (http://www.elfhill.com/leighann/writin gs/brigid.html)
Sulis is For anyone that can use keyboard and mouse Voluntary New technology that complements and integrates some already existing (i.e. email and student registration) Confidential for teachers and students alike As good as the educational design and human contact behind it
Teaching scenarios You will find Sulis useful if you want to: Give students permanent access to syllabus, lectures, or summary materials Provide extra materials, including websites, pictures, audio files, and references, for further exploration of the subject Increase participation and interaction Better assessment of student learning, formative and summative Free yourself of some administrative details, with a TA to do some of the work, especially in a very large class Etc
Interface
Tools: Inform Announcements (with optional forward to UL email address) Calendar to post events, lectures, exams, etc. (with optional forward to UL email address) Syllabus to create a unit-based outline of your course (can be linked to other tools) Feedback to provide targeted feedback to students on their assignments or other confidential information Web Content to display an external web site to your students. News displays a dynamic syndicated news source to your students (RSS feeds)
Tools: Communicate Discussion Forums to create, moderate, participate and manage discussion groups and topics within your course (asynchronous, delayed on time) Chat to engage in real-time, unstructured conversations with your students. Wiki to allow students to communicate or work collaboratively on written tasks Messages and Forums is similar to Discussion Forums, but also allows to grade discussions (integrated with Gradebook) Pools to conduct anonymous voting and automatic feedback Email Archive to send emails to the course site and keep a record of all previous messages
Tools: Guide & Instruct Resources to post, store, and organize material related to your course (PowerPoint, PDF, Word, video, mp3, or any other format) Blogger to create and maintain weblogs (blogs), or online journals. Drop Box to share documents between students and instructor in private folders Lesson Builder to create, publish and manage online learning sequences
Tools: Assess Assignments to publish, collect, assign or view grades (integrated with Gradebook), and provide feedback Tests & Quizzes for multiple choice, fill the blank, etc. tests with automated marking (integrated with Gradebook) Gradebook to store and view grades (linked to assignments, test & quizzes and message center) Data Points to identify activities that take place outside Sulis as points at which to rate student performance. Goal management to specify learning objectives at multiple levels, connect these objectives to classroom activities, and rate progress
Tools: Administer Site Editor to create, edit and manage your course site My Workspace to create sites, manage membership, set up preferences, store private resources, etc Site Statistics to see patterns of access and use
Possible Contexts Fully online classes (course sites) Blended learning environments (course sites) that supplement face-toface instruction Project collaboration (project sites) where students or faculty work on academic, professional or co-curricular projects
System Access Members of UL campus community Access from outside UL network (i.e. home or abroad) Users will have access to any site in which they have been added as a participant Sites can be made public if desired for others to join
Module sites Automatically created before the start of each semester for each module Each module site is set to unpublished (students are unable to view it until it is published by the responsible faculty member)
Instructor Access The faculty member assigned (by the HoD) to a module in the Student Academic Administration system is the manager of the course site Extra lecturers/tas are added by the main lecturer Errors in module allocation are corrected by relaying the correct information to SAA (automatic update)
Student Access Students must be registered on the module within SI to have access to the module site in Sulis Student registrations are updated nightly (i.e. a student who registers through Student Services on a module today will have access to the course site tomorrow). Most students should be registered by end of Week 1 every semester. Lecturers can add students with problems of registration as external students
Instructor Support ITD Service Desk for technical calls (http://inside/itdservicedesk or ext: 2999) Contextualised help available in every Sulis page The Sulis Support site for pedagogical support (user manuals, announcements of training and updates, resources, etc). Training sessions are offered on request
Student Support Lecturers should report technical problems on behalf of their students to ITD/Sulis Support. Introduction to Sulis for your students Contextualised help available in every Sulis page Student Handout and in the ITD site (student computing>sulis)
Produced by CTL University of Limerick For more information, contact angelica.risquez@ul.ie