I’ve been writing quite a bit for the Logic book, and am quite happy with the drupal presentation of it. But today I have run into a problem trying to copy and paste text from a Word file into a new Bookpage. The carriage returns in the text are not being obeyed in the drupal version. It’s 40 exercise passages, numbered 30-70 (which i began renumbering), but it’s coming out as one long paragraph! I have tried entering additional carriage returns in Edit mode, and they show up in Edit mode, but they don’t show up in “view.”
Earlier I cut and pasted a ten page Word doc (Arguments and non arguments) and it worked fine. these exercises were to be on a child page to that one.
i have used the image uploader. the images have gone on the homepage. is it possible to insert them right into the text at desired locations?
After so much encouragement and comments, I have to say something!
On enforcing the idea that students can only get credit for a post if they leave a comment too, I will probably approach it either by saying that each such assignment is worth 2 points, one for each aspect/ component, or else that you’ll get either zero or 2. That will depend on my mood when I write the syllabus.
Patrick showed me a drupal demo on monday, and by last night I had set up the chapter spaces for 6 chapters I think, and had filled in a little introductory content for each. I’ve found the drupal environment pretty intuitive to work in, but it took me a while to get clear about the parent/ child page stuff in creating pages.
So for instance, I have a page for Categorical Propositions. On that page I’ll have the text I write that presents the basic information I would also present in a lecture. Attached to that will be a “child” page which will list a series of exercises for the students, and attached to that another child page which will have the answers for them to check. So literally, at the stage I’m at, I am writing my own logic book on line, and the students will go from page to page electronically. and it won’t cost them $100 each for the book.
My original intention was to have the exercises be more interactive, which requires software. I’ve found a good quantity of open source software already made up, through the epistemelinks site. I haven’t had time to skim through very much of it yet, but at least some of it looks like I could use it immediately. One is the software for a published, very mainstream, and standard logic book, similar to the one i’ve just abandonned. I was surprised to see it on the web available for use free of charge! I think I can link to it on the drupal page, and for at least some of what I want to do, the software can be just right.
Patrick showed me how to upload powerpoints; it was easy with the “file attachment” button. Two things we need to work on are: how to have a group blog for sets of five students (or whether wikis would be better, like I used this past summer), and how to connect to open source logic software: links to urls? imbed it in the drupal page? I also want to be able to up load photos, and Patrick has suggested that we might be able, with Andy’s help, to convert powerpoints to videos and have them play in Flash right on the page instead of being navigated away from it.
The blog for PHIL 151, Introduction to Logic, will have a set of categories, which will look like the table of contents of an introductory logic textbook. Clicking on the topics will open up “chapters” where they will find things like lecture notes on concepts, exercises for homework, and power point presentations. The blog will also have buttons through which students access their group blogs.
I plan to assign students in sets of four or five to working groups. These students will be talking to each other all semester in a group blog. The group blog will be for collaborative work toward understanding and mastering distinctions, concepts, techniques, and skills. It will be a place where they discuss their opinions about questions or exercises; where they comment on others’ answers to questions or exercises; where they discuss the course content with each other; where they work together to figure out a solution to assigned problems; etc. For instance, after the first day of class, they will all be assigned to read chapter 6 of Through the Looking Glass, and to comment on what logically relevant distinction Carroll is making by his use of punctuation. They will also be asked to say what Humpty Dumpty’s theory of (proper) names is, and whether they agree with it, and why. Word limit to this entry: 200. They can comment on others’ entries, but before doing so, each has to compose his or her own response to these questions.
My goals for the course are:
a) at a general level, eliminate the need for and use of a textbook by publishing my own course materials on line; more specifically,
b) develop collaborative learning exercises and assignments that students can participate in through group blogs;
c) develop some software for interactive problem solving (such as truth tables and proofs).
I was playing around with the phil151 blog. Created a few subcategories in one of the categories, and tried to upload a power point about categorical propositions. That didn’t work, so I need to be shown what I did wrong. I was in “write” and saw the browse button, so I gave it a title, but I can’t find it showing up.
Just spent an hour and a half with Martha, and my head’s been spinning for most of it. But I think I have grasped some things, especially after she showed me how one of my colleagues is using a blog as a website for her class.
First thing we did today was upload, from Bluehost, a spam manager. Once that was found and uploaded (I think it had to be downloaded to my desktop first, then uploaded from there, and I think it was called “spam karma”), we went to the blog and activated it. Then we did that again for theme managing under “presentation.” k2 is the theme we installed.
Once I began to understand how the blog was a website that I could have a series of buttons on that would link to what could be units of material for a course (which could be listed down the right hand side, sort of as a table of contents), I asked her to show me how to get started on creating a blog I could start shaping for PHIL151, Intro to Logic. So now besides cvasey.org/tltblog I have cvasey.org/phil151. Just as we had installed the spam and theme stuff on my tltblog, we had to go to Bluehost and find them for my phil151 blog. So I’ve done this four times today, but I don’t know if I can do it without being walked through it again. I can’t try right now because if I navigate there, I’ll be cancelling what I’m writing. So I will go try it in a minute after I’m done here.
I created a set of categories for the phil151 blog, but they didn’t show up as table of content entries like we expected. So that’s something we have to work on.
why does it say “Dec 31 1969″ on here?
this summer i used a wiki in my Intro to Logic class as a way to have a Discussion Board that everyone could see the contents of. we didn’t use it for what wikis are intended for; no one was supposed to edit anyone else’s posting, though we all did post replies to others’ postings.
i was satisfied with it. discussion forums on blackboard are much clunkier; you have to open the thread to read the content, and then close it and open another to read its content. on the wiki, you just scroll down the page from one to another. so it was more intuitive, and faster to use, especially for going back and forth from one entry to another.
i would like to know how to set up a wiki; it would be useful for a departmental document we are drafting.