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 an @mysyllabi.org
email address automatically that they can send external emails from.
The registration
process is made up of s steps. The first step is made up of the details
mentioned above. The second step involves decorating the user's default
classroom. The third step involves populating a teacher's calendar with
resources every day of the school year. This involves ranking topics
according to her custom calendar so that we can schedule the appropriate
resources.The fourth step involves linking the user up with her school.
This matching process is done using the email address of the user as
well as their grade and state data. The fifth step involves creating
an account for the teacher's students. The sixth step involves creating
an account for the teacher's parents and linking those parents to their
respective children. Upon completion of this last step an automatic
email is sent out to these new users in order to invite them to participate.
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MY PROFILE/INBOX
The
users inbox/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 she has created intermingled with resources and
messages received in her inbox. Users can click on the calendar on the
left in order to display a set of listings in the past or future. By
toggling among the hyperlinks at the top of a user's Inbox, that user
can see her subscriptions, her sent messages, and her private resources.
She can also filter postings by category, subject, and grade. By toggling
among the hyperlinks at the top of a user's 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. If a teacher keeps
her profile public then other teachers are free to browse through all
the components of a user's profile. go
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CLASSROOM PAGE
Teacher
users are given a default classroom page upon registration. 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
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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.
Profiles
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 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 and only the administrator(s) of the classroom
can have access to see contributions made by parents and students.
Resources
have a series of option 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,
allow it to be edited as a wiki, and allow 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. Private resources can only be
seen by the original author and subscribers of the classroom that she
posted it on. 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.
Private messages can only be seen by the sender, the receiver, and possibly
the school administer who oversees her teachers' accounts. 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, permissions can be set so that only a
particular group of users can see the resource (like a classroom), 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). go
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MESSAGE CREATION
Individual
messages and group messages 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 classroom or colleague list in order to send a
message to someone within the MySyllabi community. A messages are created
on behalf of a user, not 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
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MY COLLEAGUES
My
Colleagues is a quick list of “friends” mainly used as a
My Contacts – type tool. To add someone to your colleagues, a
user visits that user's profile and clicks the “add to colleagues”
button. That potential colleague must confirm the request in order for
the two user's to be colleagues. Benefits of my colleagues is message
control against spam and convenient access within the colleagues box
on the left sidebar in order to forward listings. You must be affiliated
by classroom or colleague list in order to send a message to someone
within the MySyllabi community. go
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WHAT'S NEW
Upon
sign-in, a user is presented with a view of the most popular resources
scheduled today on classroom pages throughout the entire MySyllabi site.
The list of resources that the users sees is filtered by the same subject,
grade, and topic interest tags as the user originally declared upon
registration. The list includes all types of resources. The order for
which the resources are ranked is dependent on how many classroom pages
a particular resource is scheduled on. The algorithm takes into consideration
how many classroom pages the resource is scheduled on today as well
as how many classroom pages the resources is scheduled for any date.
Users can click on calendar days on the box on the left in order to
view a set of listings from the past or future. User can filter the
list of resources by subject/grade/topic tags or by state standards.
If she does so wish, the user can click on the customize hyperlink and
further filter the daily output she sees under her default what's new
tab. On this what's new customization page, the user can map out what
topics she is teaching throughout the calendar of the year. By sequencing
& scheduling these topics, the user is qualifying what topical resources
she sees over various time segments throughout the year on her what's
new tab. Technically speaking, this page controls the default topic
filter of the resource feed and changes it accordingly by date. The
user can also toggle to see the most recent teachers to join the community,
the most recent classrooms created within the community, and the most
recent schools to sign up for the community; all relative to the users
subject, grade, and topic interests declared upon registration. These
additional queues are ranked chronologically. go
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BROWSING WITH TABS
A
teacher user's display is made of a series of tabs on the right, “body”,
portion of the screen. These tabs include the the What's New, Inbox,
and Creation tabs mentioned above as well as a Classrooms, Colleague,
and Resources tab where users can browse through the MySyllabi community.
Under the
Colleagues tab, the user can view an output of teacher profile listings.
At the default screen, 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. Users can
toggle to see the most active, “top”, colleagues or toggle
to view a list of my colleagues.
Under
the resources tab, the user can browse through terrific resources stored
in our database. At the default screen, 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.
Under the
classrooms tab, the user can browse through terrific classrooms active
within our community. At the default screen, 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.
Similar
functionality surrounds the experience when a user clicks on the browse
schools hyperlink featured in the schools box on the left sidebar. Here,
the user can browse through terrific schools active within our community.
At the default screen, 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.
Similar functionality
also surrounds the experience when a user clicks on the "Merit-Based
Pay Raises" hyperlink 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.
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SEARCH
All
public resources, teacher profiles, classroom profiles, and school profiles
are crawlable, ranked, and they must be tagged. Messages are not crawlable.
Through keyword input, a user is returned a queue of listings ranked
by 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. This output can be refined
by category, state standard or by subject/grade. It can also be refined
spefically to listings within a user's schools or affiliated classrooms.
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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. 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. 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. 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. Similar
to a relay, this feed automatically creates a new record in the receiving
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. go to top
DIGITAL SYLLABUS
If
a user likes the entire contents of a particular classroom page but
wants to customize it to her own classroom calendar, she has a unique
tool 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
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. 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. go
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VENDOR SPONSORSHIP
A
teacher user can browse through opportunities to have her classrooms
sponsored. Underneath the Main Classrooms tab is a folder full of class
sponsorship opportunities. A teacher can visit the classroom profile
page of these sponsors and click on the "sponsorship request"
button. That vendor is then represented as a sponsor for each classroom
that the teacher is an administrator of. By selecting a sponsorship,
a teacher is 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 in a box
on the left sidebar. Classroom sponsorship is also highlighted with
a thumbnail next to every resource sent home from that classroom. Clicking
this thumbnail travels the user to sponsor's classroom page. 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. go
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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 (tabs). 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/location. 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. Same true if I am on a my profile,
and I click on the caption of the teachers box. I default with thumbnail
content relative to my colleagues, but if I click on the caption, I
can toggle through teacher subscriber collections for each of the classrooms
I am affiliated to. 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 a 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 (eg. Play button within a video).
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, and forwarding a resource to a colleague. 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
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