"Would you mind leading a thread discussing what the feature set should be. In the meantime, I will try to obtain funding."
I'd be delighted, Al!
Let's start by brainstorming some use cases. I'll start us out with a couple:
- First case: An introductory literature class. The professor divides the students up into groups of three. Each student is to keep a weekly journal, responding to specific issues about the literature they are reading. The students are also expected to comment on each other's journals. From time to time, the professor may want to call attention to a particularly interesting discussion or journal entry. The professor will probably want some sort of list view to see a summary of the activities of individual students (a type of functionality that is generally weak in dotLRN at the moment).
- Second case: A researcher wants to keep public notes on works in progress. In classic blog style, the researcher posts updates on her latest thoughts regarding the experiment or progress. She then makes the blog available for comment by selected peers, who give her feedback as she goes. The researcher is probably going to want email alerts for blog comments.
- Third case: In a corporate training course, learners are required to implement a course-related project on-the-job and post regular progress reports. Other usage details are probably similar to the literature course above.
That's a good start. How else might blogs be useful in an educational context?
