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REGISTRATION
 User
creates an account with a username, email address, password, zip/state,
avatar and they tag themselves by their interest declarations with regard
to their subject, grade, and topic interests. Many social networks look
empty because they don't default their users with a unique icon. MySyllabi
gives the user a selection of avatars to choose from based on their
subject/grade/topic interests as well as the ability to upload their
own. Upon registration a user is automatically given a profile/inbox
record which is crawlable within the database. The primary key of this
profile is an @mysyllabi.org email address automatically given to the
user.
The registration
process is made up of five steps. The first step is made up of the details
mentioned above. The second step involves titling the user's school,
creating a description and uploading an avatar. The third step involves
creating teacher accounts. The fourth step involves creating student
accounts and linking them to their teachers. The last step involves
creating parent accounts and linking them to their children (students).
Upon completion of this last step an automatic email is sent out to
these new users in order to invite them to participate. go
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INBOX
 A
school or district administrator can gain an eagle eye of activity taking
place within each of her classrooms. The inbox is a collection of all
the daily contributions to each of the classrooms in the district. Users
can click on the calendar on the left in order to display a set of listings
in the past or future. Because a school or district is made up of multiple
classrooms, it is important to have the ability filter among this feed.
The administrator user has the ability to filter this feed by subject/grade/topic
or by state standard. The administrator can also receive messages in
this queue. go to top
MY
PROFILE
 The
users profile is made up of the username, the user's avatar, the description
of the user, a listing of her interest tags,all the public resources
and messages created by her faculty and stored in school classrooms
. By toggling among the hyperlinks at the top of the profile page, you
can see her favorites folder of resources, her colleagues list, her
classrooms list, her list of subscriptions, and statistics on how active
the user is. These affiliations are also featured in boxes on the left
sidebar along with additional boxes for her schools list and her sponsors
list. go to top
CLASSROOM
PAGE
 Upon
registration, a classroom is set up for each teacher that the school
administrator creates in the system. A classroom page is like a blog.
It is a collection of resource contributions made on behalf of the classroom.
A classroom page has a profile/description, an avatar, subscribers (teachers,
parents, & students), permissions and user roles for those subscribers,
a list of contributions made on behalf of the classroom, resources relaid
to the page from other classrooms, a favorite folder and sub-folders
therein, a calendar view of all resource associated with the classroom,
privacy settings, category tags (subjects, grades, topics) so that similar
teachers can find the classroom and subscriptions so that the classroom
can be put on “auto-pilot” and thereafter dependent on the
contributions of another classroom. A teacher can create and be administrator
of as many classroom pages as she wishes. Administrators and those subscribers
with privileges have the ability to re-order/reschedule contributions
however they see fit. School/district administrators have the ability
to edit the developments of classrooms they are affiliated with by teacher-school
relationships. go to top
PRIVACY
SETTINGS
 Privacy
is extremely important within the MySyllabi system. While we do want
to encourage as much collaboration as possible, we do not want to force
it upon our users. Users can opt-out of default privacy settings for
each of the number of ways that users can privatize their identity and
contributions on the site. A user can privatize her personal profile,
she can privatize a classroom that she is an administrator of, and she
can privatize resources that she creates.
Profile set
to private cannot be viewed by users that aren't affiliated as a my
colleague. Profile privacy settings are toggled on the user's my account
page. Browsing and searching users do see the listing of private users,
however when they click to see the private users profile, the only information
that is displayed is the private user's avatar, description, listed
tags, and a button that allows outsiders to request to be a my colleague.
Once a private user approves this request, the rest of the profile features
of the private user are available to be seen.
 Classrooms
set to private cannot be viewed by users that aren't affiliated as subscribers.
Classroom privacy settings are controlled by the administrators of the
classroom and are accessed within the admin control menu bar. Browsing
and searching users do see the listing of private classrooms, however
when they click to see the private classroom's profile, the only information
that is displayed is the private classroom's avatar, description, listed
tags, and a button that allows outsiders to request to be a my subscriber.
Classroom administrators have the ability set a less sensitive version
of this by allowing the public community of users to view the classroom,
but make them request to subscribe. If the admin wants to let them subscribe,
but doesn't want them to contribute, then she can set her user roles
accordingly. All of these requests are supported by email and message
notification in the administrator and requester's inbox. MySyllabi greatly
values the security of parent and student accounts, however our system
is flexible enough to allow teachers to show off the contributions of
their students and parents. If a teacher's school chooses so, then she
has the option to make her parent and student contributions public for
other members of the community to see on her classroom page. By default,
this option is turned off.
Resources
have a series of options with regard to privatization. The final step
of authoring allows the user to control these privacy settings and they
can be edited throughout the life-span of the resource. The original
author can allow the resource to be indexed, can allow it to be viewed,
allowed to be edited as a wiki, and allowed for other teachers to customize
on their own; or each of these options can not be allowed – its
up to the original author to determine. Draft resources can only be
seen by the original author, however she may create a list of colleagues
who have access to view and relay the resource. This information is
featured on the permissions toggle of the opened resource underneath.
Unlike private profiles and classrooms, private resources are not indexed
and available through search or browsing. go
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RESOURCE
CREATION
 Users
can create resources that are stored within particular classroom pages.
The authoring template to create resources is dynamic and dependent
on the type of resource the user wants to create. These types include
weblink, folder, video, chat, slideshow, image, learning game, assessment,
or audio. Authors can also attach files or url address to a resource.
Resources can be kept private so that only the user can see them in
draft, permissions can be set so that only a particular group of users
can see the resource (like a group), or they can be made public so that
they can be seen by the entire MySyllabi community through search, what's
new, or inbox feeds. If a resource is made public, it must be tagged
by subject, grade and topic so that it can be displayed to the right
users in the MySyllabi community. A user can only author resources on
behalf of the classroom page, not on behalf of herself (her profile).
To create a resource, an admin user visits the classroom page she'd
like to post on, then clicks the create resource hyperlink in the top
right. go to top
MESSAGE
CREATION
 Individual
messages and group messages (announcements) can be sent, delivered and
received on MySyllabi. Message authoring can be initiated by going to
someone 's profile page and clicking the "send message" button
or the user can click the create tab and select "message"
in order to create. A message has a title, body and attachments. It
has a list of recipients that the user can select from her contacts
list (made from her classroom subscription affiliations or from her
colleague list). You cannot send unsolicited messages to someone within
the MySyllabi community. You must be affiliated by school, classroom
or colleague list in order to send a message to someone within the MySyllabi
community. A message can be created on behalf of a user, or on behalf
of a classroom or school. Messages can be sent to outside email address
using the MySyllabi tool. Emails from outside address can also be received
within the MySyllabi tool if the user either configures their primary
email address or the school administrator purchases the MySyllabi tool
for the primary email for his faculty. go
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MY
TEACHERS
 To
add someone to your list of teachers, an administer user visits that
user's profile and clicks the “add to schools” button. That
potential faculty member must confirm the request in order for the two
user's to be connected by school. Teachers who are affiliated to a school
allow for administrative privileges to be put over them: editing/deleting
profile & contributions. go
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BROWSING
WITH TABS
An administrator
user's display is made of a series of tabs on the right, “body”,
portion of the screen. These tabs include the the inbox tab mentioned
above as well as a Schools, Classrooms, Teachers, Parents and Students
tab where users can browse through their community as well as the MySyllabi
community.
Under the
Teachers tab, the user can view an output of teacher profile listings
ranked by activity level. At the default screen, the user sees all of
the teachers within her district or school community. The user can refine
this list by subject/grade or category. The user can also see teachers
across the nation in the MySyllabi community. Here, the admin can create
new teachers for her school/district community. When the user clicks
on the top teachers hyperlink above, the user sees three folders are
featured at the top of the list allowing the user to browse within the
top three teacher categories. Underneath is a list of the top, most
active teachers across the nation according to the user's subject/grade/topic
interests. The user can filter by subject and grade, state or by category.
These categories include teachers, administrators, librarians, professors,
curriculum coordinators, tech coordinators, and educational publishers.
 Under
the Classrooms tab, the user can view an output of teacher profile listings
ranked by activity level. At the default screen, the user sees all of
the classrooms within her district or school community. The user can
refine this list by subject/grade or category. The user can also see
classrooms across the nation in the MySyllabi community. Here, the admin
can create new classrooms for her school/district community. When the
user clicks on the top teachers hyperlink above, the user sees three
folders are featured at the top of the list allowing the user to browse
within the top three classroom categories. Underneath is a list of the
top, most active classrooms according to the algorithm mentioned above
and the user's subject/grade/topic interests. The user can filter by
subject and grade, state or by category. These categories include educational
publishers, pre-schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges &
universities, schools of education, private schools, home schools, charter
schools, department of education, professional development, teacher
associations, technology groups, and vendors/sponsors. Users can toggle
to create a new classroom or toggle to view a list of my classrooms.
 Under
the Schools tab, the user can view an output of school profile listings
ranked by activity level. At the default screen, the user sees all of
the schools within her district community. The user can refine this
list by subject/grade or category. The user can also see schools across
the nation in the MySyllabi community. Here, the admin can create new
schools for her district community. When the user clicks on the top
schools hyperlink above, the user sees three folders are featured at
the top of the list allowing the user to browse within the top three
school categories. Underneath is a list of the top, most active schools.
The user can filter by subject and grade, state or by category. These
categories include pre-schools, elementary schools, middle schools,
high schools, charter schools, private schools, secondary schools, grad
schools, colleges, universities, training schools, and summer schools.
Users can toggle to see the most active “top” schools, toggle
to see new schools, or toggle to view a list of my schools.
Under the
Parents tab, the user can view an output of parent profile listings
ranked by activity level. At the default screen, the user sees all of
the parents within her district community. The user can refine this
list by subject/grade. Here, the admin can create new parents for her
district community. She can toggle to see profile listing ranked for
slacking parents or new parents. If the user does so choose, she can
broadcast an announcement (message) to all parents in her school community
from here.
 Under
the Students tab, the user can view an output of student profile listings
ranked by activity level. At the default screen, the user sees all of
the students within her district community. The user can refine this
list by subject/grade. Here, the admin can create new students for her
district community. She can toggle to see profile listing ranked for
slacking students, or new students. If the user does so choose, she
can broadcast an announcement (message) to all students in her school
community from here.
Similar functionality
surrounds the experience when a user clicks on the browse resources
hyperlink featured in the resource box on the left sidebar. Here, the
user can browse through terrific resource active within the school/district
community as well as in the MySyllabi community at a whole. Under the
default screen, the user can view an output of school resource listings
ranked by popularity. The user can refine this list by subject/grade
or category. The user can also see resource listings across the nation
in the MySyllabi community. Here, the admin can create new resource
for her district community. When the user clicks on the top resources
hyperlink above, three folders are featured at the top of the list allowing
the user to browse within the top three resource categories. Underneath
is a list of the top, most active resources according to the algorithm
mentioned above and the user's subject/grade/topic interests. The user
can filter by subject and grade, state standard or by category. Users
can toggle to see new resources or toggle to view a list of my resources.
Similar functionality
also surrounds the experience when a user clicks on the EDU+AID logo
featured in the sponsors box on the left sidebar. Under the sponsors
screen, the user can browse through terrific sponsors active within
our community. At the default screen, the most active sponsors are featured
according to the amount of dollars donated to teachers. Users can toggle
to see new sponsors according to category: entertainment, clothes, equipment,
food, travel, & misc. Each listed sponsor offers a merit based pay
raise opportunity for a teacher as well as a promotional discount/give-away.
Sponsors on these toggle pages are ranked by the amount of available
sponsorship opportunities. go
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SEARCH
 All
public resources, teacher profiles, classroom profiles, and school profiles
are crawlable and ranked because they must be tagged. Messages are not
crawlable. Through keyword input, a user is returned a queue of listings
ranked by the either the amount of activity within the classroom, the
amount of calendars/classroom posting pages a resource is posted on,
or the amount of activity a teacher or school is involved in. Administrator
can search for public and private listings affiliated with their school.
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RELAYING
 Every
listing in MySyllabi is mobile, meaning that it can be forwarded to
the inbox of either a classroom or the inbox of a user. If a resource
is relaid, then a duplicate copy of the record is stored on the classroom
page or inbox and "parent" data is stored within the new record.
Users are free to delete the new record if they wish but if they choose
to edit the listing, then the original "parent" data is retained.
If a classroom, user profile, or school is relaid to a classroom or
user inbox, then an agent record is stored on the classroom page or
inbox, which points to the particular profile. To relay a listing in
MySyllabi, a user can drag and drop the icon to its left towards each
of the boxes featured on the left. Users can also relay resources, by
opening them up and clicking on the hyperlinks featured at the bottom
of the hover box (which opens a according menu). Listings relaid to
an inbox go to the top of the inbox's stack for the day. Listings relaid
to a calendar day on the left go to the top of the inbox for the according
day selected. go to top
SUBSCRIBING
TO A CLASSROOM
 Classroom
administrators can set permissions determining who can view affiliated
items. One of those permissions is the right to subscribe to a classroom.
Classroom subscriptions allow users to receive an automatic feed to
their inbox every time a new contribution is added to a classroom. A
school administrator automatically subscribes to all classrooms affiliated
to the school/district. Similar to a relay, this feed automatically
creates a new record in the user's inbox. Users are free to delete the
new record if they wish but if they choose to edit the listing, then
the original "parent" data is retained. Depending on the permissions
of the classroom, subscribers may be able to contribute collaboratively
to the classroom as well. Notification feeds consolidate records stored
in a user's personal inbox when the user contributes to a classroom
that they subscribe to. When viewing the classroom page queue, the user
can see who authored each contribution, while non-subscribers only see
the classroom avatar. Resources relaid to the classroom page feature
the avatar of the originating classroom. To subscribe to a classroom,
a users visits the profile page of the classroom and clicks on the "subscribe"
link featured within the classroom description. Private
classrooms require a request and approval by the classroom administrator.
All classroom affiliations are featured as a thumbnail in the classrooms
box featured in the left sidebar. A school administrator has the ability,
through admin privileges, to set up subscriptions for any teacher, parent,
student, or classroom in the school/district community. go
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DIGITAL
SYLLABUS
 If
a user likes the entire contents of a particular classroom page but
wants to customize it to one her own classroom calendars, she has a
unique resource called a digital syllabus. A digital syllabus is sequence
of classroom postings that a teacher can insert into her calendar, starting
on the day of her choosing. The contents of the blog are then-after
dripped according to the subscriber at the pace for which they are originally
authored/scheduled (with weekends taken into consideration). Teachers
can edit digital syllabi before they insert them into their calendar.
This is valuable not only for curriculum spanning an entire year but
also in smaller spitz such as a few weeks covering a unit or a few days
covering a lesson. A teacher can create new digital syllabi by clicking
from a classroom posting page that she has created or one made by other
permitting teachers in the community. Digital syllabi can also be converted
from filled folders or from classroom pages. They can also be created
from a blank slate by dragging resources from the resource box on the
right to the calendar days featured on the right. After opening A digital
syllabus up to see in month calendar view, the teacher can also rearrange
and delete resources scheduled. A
school administrator has the ability, through admin privileges, to set
up digital syllabus subscriptions for any teacher, parent, student,
or classroom in the school/district community. go
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SCHOOL
AFFILIATION
 There
is a “Request to Join School” button on each school profile.
Teachers can request to join the school with this button and the administrator
is sent a message with this request. By joining a school, a teacher's
profile (and the profiles of her parents and students) contributions,
classrooms and messages can be monitored, edited, and deleted by the
administrator of a school.
School affiliations
are featured in a thumbnail in the school box on the left sidebar. If
a teacher is already a member of the MySyllabi community before a school/district
decides to purchase the participation package, then the administrator
can go to the teacher's profile and click the “Add to school”
button. go
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VENDOR
SPONSORSHIP
 A
school admin user can browse through opportunities to have classrooms
within her school sponsored. Underneath the Classrooms tab is a folder
full of class sponsorship opportunities. A school administrator can
visit the classroom profile page of these sponsors and click on the
"sponsorship request" button. She must then select checkboxes
for each of the classrooms from her school. By selecting a sponsorship
for a classroom, school/district teachers are eligible for rewards provided
by the sponsor depending on the listed requirements associated with
the particular sponsorship program she selects. These requirements are
tied to the statistics of the classroom which focus on consumption rates
of subscribers. Classroom sponsorships are brought to light with a banner
ad featured next to every opened resource associated with the classroom.
Classroom sponsorship is also highlighted with a thumbnail in the sponsor
box on the left sidebar. Clicking this thumbnail travels the user to
sponsor's classroom page. School/district administrators or their teachers
may opt-out of sponsorship for any of their classrooms, but they only
receive reward from the sponsor if they fulfill the listed statistical
requirements. go to top
AUTO-EMAIL
FREQUENCY
 While
the user is able to use MySyllabi completely and disband their current
email system, they may want to take the whole experience slowly and
have it work alongside their current email system. This is done through
email updates sent from MySyllabi to the user's previous email inbox
(hotmail, yahoo, gmail, ect...) or if they have them social network
notifications (MySpace, Facebook). As you may have read so far, there
are many updates that may be associated with a particular user. The
system defaults with one email sent out a day, which is a mirror listing
of a user's inbox. In addition, any subscription requests or colleague
requests are sent immediately. The user is free to change these settings
so that they receive an email once a week, or immediately for each update,
or one per classroom subscription. The school/district administrator
has control to set this control for each of her teachers users.
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CONTEXTUAL
SIDE BAR
 To
the left of all output is a contextual side bar that facilitates easy
navigation and organization around the MySyllabi website. The different
types of affiliation boxes include Classrooms, Calendar, Teachers, Resources,
Parents, Students, Schools, and Sponsors. The thumbnails featured in
these boxes are in the same order as the user defines them on their
full blown sisters. There is an additional vertical scroll bar positioned
to the left of the window as well. This scroll bar allows the user to
vertically scroll and position the boxes for optimum drag n' drop efficiency.
Ideally, we will be make this scrolling action a cycled loop so that
when the user navigates to the bottom of the scroll bar, it automatically
restarts from the top. All listing featured throughout the site can
be dragged and dropped into the thumbnails of these boxes. By simply
rolling over the thumbnails within each box, the title of the thumbnail's
destination is interchanged with the caption of the box. The sidebar
does not reload when the user navigates from the right side and takes
advantage of framing technology. The sidebar also takes advantage of
variable window size among different monitors and screen resolutions.
Users can expand the sidebar horizontally and expand the horizontal
length of each box. Each box can also be expanded vertically. In both
cases more thumbnails are possibly displayed and any spill over is compensated
with a mini scroll bar positioned on the right of each box.
While the
sidebar does not reload when the user navigates from the right side
of the page, it does take cues upon these hyperlink clicks commissioned
on the right side of the page. These cues send reload instructions to
particular boxes within the scroll bar, allowing them to reload individually
with ajax technology. These boxes are dynamic depending on where the
user has found herself navigated on the site. If a user is browsing
or situated in front of My Profile content, then the content featured
within the boxes is relative to my affiliations. However, if I am viewing
the profile of a particular classroom, teachers, parents, student, school,
or sponsor/vendor, then the contents in each of these boxes is relative
to the affiliation of that particular profile. What is unique about
these boxes is that they serve for ample navigation on their own. By
clicking on the caption of each box, the user is able to toggle between
particular affiliations that are relevant at the time. For example.
If I am on a school profile, then I can click on the caption of the
calendar box to toggle between sets of calendars representing each of
the classrooms of the school. This tool is extremely useful when relaying
great listings, especially when I want to relay a listing to a particular
day in the future on the calendar of one of the classrooms I am either
administrator or subscriber of. go
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OPENED
RESOURCES
 Resources
can be opened from numerous locations throughout the site. To open a
resource, a user can simply click on the title. By doing so a hover
over box opens and resizes according the containing content. The rest
of the screen grays out when a resource is open and it can be closed
by either clicking the “close” hyperlink in the menu at
the top of the hover over or by clicking anywhere in the gray area.
The layout of the resource hover over is made up of a menu of hyperlinks
at the top and bottom as well as content located in the middle. Controls
to navigate the content is featured within the content itself and depend
on the type the resource represents. The hyperlinks in the bottom menu
allow for relay without having to drag and drop. These controls include
adding the resource to a classroom calendar, directly forward a resource
directly to the top of a classroom stack, forward a resource to a colleague,
saving a resource into either my favorites folder or saving a resource
into a favorites folder belonging to one of my affiliated classrooms.
In addition, controls here include the ability open the resource in
a new tab, the ability to flag the content as inappropriate, and the
ability to edit or delete the resource. Hyperlinks belonging to the
menu at the top of the hover over window include controls featuring
information about the resource. These include a toggle to see usage
and consumption statistics of the resource itself, a toggle to see who
has viewed the resource and when they viewed it, a toggle listing the
permissions set by the original author, a toggle listing all comments
left from consuming users, a toggle featuring tags set by the original
author, and a toggle featuring all the classrooms that the resource
has been scheduled on. go to top
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