In another area, we’re thinking about conceptualizing different syetems for teaching using current and emergent tools. Here’s a summary. Let’s say that, hypothetically, students and faculty may enter a course in a weblog interface with tags adjusted in sidebars for a variety of things:

1. A list of courses
2. A list of course contents, readily available in whatever form (docs, wmvs, swfs, slides).
3. Links to preassigned research materials
4. Links to a forum (such as bbPress), chat, or other communication tools.
5. And then a list of feeds from the above tools, itemized by a) most recent and b) comments made directly to the student or faculty member since their last session.

(Note that everything here is one click away)

6. Another area could be designated for external feeds from the library, relevant publications, and even other types of communities given the subject matter: newspaper section articles, culture and descipline publications, and portfolios.

(Note, everything is still one click away).

One additional point to make has to do with flexibility. This kind of system might make using information technology a little more friendly for casual users of the system. For those not teaching online or hybrid, the system would be much simpler to use for those who just wanted add a few things for students to use: syllabus, a few articles, whatever.

A lot of this thought comes from James Farmer with other ideas stemming from Jeremy Hiebert.