Blended Learning with Drupal . Douglas L. Holton

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Submitted by eraser on Mar, 07/21/2009 - 02:26


Como hace mucho tiempo que no traemos un artículo con tos sus avíos... hoy traemos para la lectura " Blended Learning with Drupal" de Douglas L. Holton del último número del Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Vol. 5, No. 2, June 2009

Blended Learning with Drupa

Douglas L. Holton
Utah State University
Logan, UT USA
doug.holton@usu.edu


Abstract

This case study describes the design and implementation of a foundations of educational technology course with the support of a web-based application known as Drupal. Drupal is a powerful free and open source web application framework in which one can use wikis, blogs, groups, and other tools to support the classroom learning experiences of students. In this course, distance masters students used these tools to build their own wiki-based knowledge base about the field of educational technology.

Keywords: content management system, Web 2.0, wikis, blogs, open source, RSS, student identity, educational technology, instructional technology

Introduction

Via informal conversations and surveys, students informed faculty in the author's department of their desire to get to know the faculty and other students better. Distance education students in particular wished to become better connected to the department and with one another, and many students and faculty felt the department website could use an update and do a better job of serving their needs. The author identified with many of their concerns as the experience of being a graduate student was still fresh on his mind, and as a new faculty member was motivated to promote his own research and get to know the students better. The author created a new website and set of web applications to better support the students and faculty. As it happened, the same kinds of tools that can help increase students' sense of academic community can also assist in instructional settings, particularly in support for blended learning. This article describes the tools used to create this interactive website, and a case study of using it as a blended learning support resource in an introductory graduate course on educational technology. The software underlying this website, built on the Drupal content management system, is now being packaged for free release to other departments and schools, and has since been used as a blended learning support tool in a number of other courses.

Drupal

Drupal is a free and open source PHP-based content management system. Content management systems traditionally allow for multiple end users in an organization to contribute content to a website, without the need to go through a single webmaster. Drupal however is also an extensible framework that can be used to create web applications and social software as well. Many popular sites on the web were built with Drupal (see e.g., The Onion, recovery.gov and this list for more), as well as several educational sites and websites for universities and K-12 schools (see this list). The features of many popular Web 2.0 sites such as Blogger, Wikispaces, Digg, Youtube, Wikipedia, and Yahoo Answers can be re-implemented in Drupal if one so desires, without any programming required. This involves installing and configuring any of the thousands of free modules, or plugins for Drupal, including modules that enable the use of wikis, video and audio podcasting, groups, calendars, surveys, photo galleries, and other functionality. Some features are already available and built into Drupal, such as blogs, RSS feeds, news stories, static web pages, and user profile pages.(leer más...)

Fuente: [jolt]