[schooltool-dev] *Now* we're (tj)Talkin! - another way SchoolTool can help tranform education...

[Jeffrey Elkner]

On the way to dropping Filip off at the metro yesterday he blew me away by describing his research-lab project for this year: tjTalk ( https://edge.launchpad.net/tjtalk ).  Here is what Filip said that got my head spinning:

1. tjTalk will allow students to post questions to a school forum, and permit other students and the teacher *to rate the responses to those questions in terms of helpfulness*.

2. tjTalk is being written in Zope 3.

3. Filip has already been thinking about how to integrate it into SchoolTool.

It is our explicit goad in our new Governor's Career and Technical Academy to promote interdisciplinary, project based learning.  We clearly need to promote a community of learners approach to make our school a dynamic exciting learning environment that truly drives achievement.

How about...

A new kind of external activity that connects the SchoolTool gradebook to tjTalk, so that students earn points by answering (and asking) questions from their peers that their peers consider helpful.

I would love to use such a thing with my classes and I know other teachers would too.

We could be seeing the beginning of the kind of SchoolTool community Tom envisions.

jeff