Teaching with OPML
Ursinus College religion professor Nathan Rein is exploring using OPML files in the classroom. OPML files can organize information and sources in openly accessible, easy to use formats.
Rein mentions OPML Workstation as one resource, where he created a sample class, along with one OPML reader.
Does anyone have experience or examples to share?
Comments:
Thanks for the post, Bryan. One additional link is this one, in which I've embedded a Grazr iframe into a simple wiki page. It allows the OPML file to be integrated into a bare-bones course website that was quick to build and easy to use. It's been very useful. (To visit it, go to rels-327 dot pbwiki dot com above and click "Course outline". For some reason, Bryan, your b2e software is not letting me leave URLs in the comments or the URL field.)
Comment by Nathan Rein [Visitor] 
02/13/07 @ 05:27
Permalink
Imagine a course, "The Internet and Presidential Politics". Imagine that you are the professor of this class. Imagine that you ask members of your class--perhaps a hundred students in all-to participate in the following experiment:
During the first week of class, each student personally invests two one-half-hour periods surfing the web. Students are asked to find material that might be of interest to the class as a whole, and might be relevant to the topic of the class.
The students click a special bookmarklet to capture pages. A simple click saves each contribution into a collective list fed by the selections of a hundred students! These selections are exhibited, most-recent-at-top, in an infinite scrolling list on a public web site.
After posting their contributions, students read through the listings and pick out three of most personal interest. In class and sections, students what moved them about their particular choices.
This exercise is hosted at OPML Workstation. The professor creates a "target folio" and writes a first paragraph to introduce the topic. The professor sets the access control to allow visitors to comment/edit the page. This is done with one click in the Writer, as the page is created. The entire time required is minimal.
Students are asked to visit the folio page. It is hosted at opmlworkstation.com/browse/...
At the top of the page, just under the title, there is a drag-and-drop "Bookit" tag. Students drag this into their browser toolbar and it becomes a "bookmarklet." As they subsequently surf the web, clicking the bookmarklet posts page references to the chosen folio.
Note, the bookmarklet is simple but powerful. Highlighted selections of text on the page are captured and posted. Comments can be added. YouTube or Google Video is automatically grabbed and is displayed.
Imagine the velocity of contributions that could be achieved with a dozen students, or a hundred! Lots of fun to see what is posted to the shared feed!
Let us know when you try this!
Best, Jim Moore for the OPML Workstation team.
Comment by Jim Moore [Visitor] · http://opmlworkstation.com 02/22/07 @ 18:39
Permalink
No experience or real examples to share, but I've thought for a long time that OPML reading lists could be useful in the classroom, especially if they change over time as described here http://blogs.opml.org/AMYLOO/2006/02/04#churningUrnsOfBurningFunk
I found my way here from Jim Moore's blog. I was going to post a comment there, but it looks like he's switched them off.
Comment by Amyloo [Visitor] · http://blogs.opml.org/amyloo 02/23/07 @ 01:20
Permalink
Leave a comment
Allowed XHTML tags: <p, ul, ol, li, dl, dt, dd, address, blockquote, ins, del, span, bdo, br, em, strong, dfn, code, samp, kdb, var, cite, abbr, acronym, q, sub, sup, tt, i, b, big, small>
