The Story Behind Course Builder

Posted by Maggie Johnson, Director of Education and University Relations

Last summer, we ran a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on Power Searching. Soon after, we open sourced Course Builder, the platform that we developed on Google technologies to present the course. Since then, we have released four versions of Course Builder adding features such as user-friendly content development, administrative support, dashboards on student performance and behavior, new assessment types including peer review, accessibility, internationalization, etc. A large number of courses have been hosted on Course Builder, with many more in the pipeline.

This work started with the observation that we have all the component technology one needs to create a platform for delivering a learning experience similar to other MOOCs that were being offered on Coursera and Udacity. So we set about wiring together these components (YouTube, App Engine, Groups, Apps, Google+ and Hangouts, etc.) to create the first version of Course Builder.

As we talked with faculty and others who wanted to create online learning experiences, we saw an opportunity for Course Builder to play an important role in the MOOC space. Our goal is to provide the capability for anyone to create a MOOC or even an “OOC”. We believe that an online environment can be used for a wide variety of education-related activities beyond just the standard university course. We have implemented a feature set that supports this goal.

Our users include not only colleges and universities, but also non-profits and K12 organizations. We host academic courses such as Information Visualization and Game Theory, as well as short courses including Mapping with Google, Digital Learning in K12, YouTube Creator Academy, and Giving with Purpose. Supporting this diversity in users, content and format is why we created Course Builder.

Hosting the platform on App Engine has provided additional capabilities that are essential for our users, particularly colleges and universities. It’s possible to brand a MOOC anyway the user wants. The user also owns the relationship with the student directly, and owns any data that they collect to use anyway they like. Given Course Builder is open source, it is possible to easily add customized features. Add to that App Engine’s scalability, self-managed hosting and the extensible component architecture built into Course Builder, and you have a powerful, flexible platform that can support any number of students and any type of content.

We will continue to support this diverse user base, and work to get even more great teachers and innovative learning designers involved in experimenting in this brave new world of online learning. The potential for positive disruption and change is enormous.

Mini Houses Tutorial By June Crawford of A Creative Dream

I just love making houses and using house pictures to decorate my home.  To my delight June Crawford had a wonderful tutorial on her A Creative Dream  blog showing you how to make mini clay houses.  I just LOVE them and will be adding some to my "to do" list.  How about you?

Mini houses

Copyright © 2011 - All Rights Reserved - Written by June Crawford of A Creative Dream

Here's what June had to say about her tutorial:  Clay house tutorial... Ahh... the weekend... a couple of them ago I spent my weekend making tiny houses from polymer clay and then shared them with you guys on this post. I had a couple of people ask what I had made them from, and Susan asked if I'd consider doing a tutorial... well, heck yeah... you ask, I try to make it happen!  These tiny things are simple, simple, simple... I promise!

Please respect June's TERMS OF USE:  Please note, in regard to the copyright, all of the directions and photographs in my tutorials are mine, you may not copy or reproduce them without my consent. These instructions are for you to use for PERSONAL use only, not for profit.

June's Bio:  Me... a dreamer, a ponderer of big and small thoughts. A wanna-be artist, a soon to be empty-nester... wondering what the heck I am gonna do with the rest of my life...

Copyright © 2011 - All Rights Reserved - June Crawford of A Creative Dream.

Please visit  her A Creative Dream blog at http://acreativedreamer.blogspot.com/. Her A Creative Dream Flickr page is at  http://www.flickr.com/photos/creativedreamer/.

Recognize this bum?

Charlie Chaplin as a young man (1916, age 27) without makeup.

Sometimes mistaken for a "chupacabra"

Photographed at a Toronto apartment complex.   You probably won't guess what it is without looking beneath the fold...
The posture might give it away; otherwise it's almost unrecognizable as a raccoon with alopecia:

More details by the photographer at the Reddit source thread.  Comments there suggest that it is not suffering from mange, which is inflammatory and results in scratching of the skin. 

What strikes me is how bulky raccoons are (of course these are urban ones that are harvesting garbage and pet food).  But even in the wild they are not fluffy balls of fur.

Why cities love speed cameras

A set of speed cameras in a box in a four-lane tunnel in Washington D.C. has issued over 61,000 speeding tickets in the past seven months.

The revenue from speed cameras and red-light cameras has grown to become a noteworthy piece in the District’s $12.1 billion budget since the devices made their debut 14 years ago. Overall, they took in $84.9 million in fiscal 2012. Since the current fiscal year began Oct. 1, the 10 most-profitable speed cameras have issued $29.5 million in tickets...

So far this fiscal year, the camera inside a 5-foot-tall steel box on K Street is by far the most productive in the District. After its $8.1 million in revenue, a camera on southbound D.C. 295 ranks second with 33,495 tickets valued at $4.6 million.

What to watch for:

There are orange warning signs — “Photo Enforced” — hanging beneath the 25 mph signs on either end of the tunnel, but they are missed or ignored by an average of 305 drivers a day who receive speeding tickets in the mail. 

Pro and con arguments at the link.

"Rust and Bone"

YouTube link.

I watched "Rust and Bone" last night. It's an engaging movie, not always easy to watch because the behavior or the characters themselves is not always appealing, but the acting is superb.  I remembered Marion Cotillard from her multi-award-winning portrayal of Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose; Matthias Schoenaerts was new to me. 

This is not your typical Hollywood movie (it's French-Belgian), and though categorized as a romantic drama, it's not the stereotypical chick-flick.  It is brutally frank about some of the less-pleasant aspects of life.  The scene in which Marion Cotillard's character briefly reunites with the orcas is magical, and her overall performance is superb, even when (especially when) she sits quietly, reacting to events around her.

Those who have seen it are invited to add their own mini-reviews in the Comments.

Sand-greens golf

A column in today's online Wall Street Journal brought back a lot of pleasant memories.  It reported on the "sand-greens" division of the Kansas high school golf championships.

Back in the 1950s, one of the courses where my family played golf (Tianna Country Club, Walker, Minnesota) had sand greens.  They were a cheaper alternative to the manicured grass used in conventional golf courses; greens fees could be substantially lower than on grass-greens courses, and courses could be constructed in communities that couldn't otherwise afford a golf course.

The sand would sometimes be moistened with vegetable or motor oil.  After completing play on a hole, it was the responsibility of the golfers to drag the green in a spiral fashion from the center to the edge with a piece of carpet to restore the smoothness of the sand for the next players.  I don't remember ever using a roller to flatten a path between one's ball and the cup, and suspect that is a more modern intervention.

I'm delighted to learn that sand-green golf still exists.  For the golfers out there, here are links to a Sports Illustrated history of sand-greens golf,  and to Pasture Golf, which "features golf courses that have the distinction of not being excessively manicured but which are fun and affordable to play. These courses are a surviving link to the original Scottish links courses, golf’s historical grassroots."

Top photo credit: John Paul Newport/The Wall Street Journal.  Right embed via Pasture Golf.