[Edu-sig] Lesson plan collection

[Timothy Wilson]

On Wed, 4 Jul 2001, Dethe Elza wrote:

> Well, some of the other SIGs have online repositories.  We could start a
> SourceForge site or a Wiki with the purpose of housing a FAQ, examples
> repository, important pointers which crop up, tips for getting up to speed
> with the group, etc.  Lesson plans could be an important part of this.

I was talking with another list member, Chris Smith, a couple weeks ago and
we were trying to figure out a way to index our lesson plans. In a perfect
world, a teacher (or student for that matter) would search a database for
lessons that match a particular type of Python task.

So let's say a teacher wanted to teach intermediate string manipulation. The
database might return a link to a programming exercise like the Pig Latin
translator one I wrote a couple weeks ago when Chris and I were discussing
this. (http://www.isd197.org/sibley/staff/wilsont/python/piglatin_html)

The problem, of course, is that it's nearly impossible to write a
programming exercise that only "exercises" one aspect of programming. The
database would probably need to employ some metadata about the lesson plan
submissions listing all of the programming skills required by each exercise
and some indication of the level of skill required.

Something like Zope.org's concept of sharing links would probably
work. The lesson plan submitor would only need to add the metadata and
provide a link to the actual lesson plan.

I've undoubtedly overlooked a lot here. It's been largely a stream of
consciousness post. I'd appreciate any other ideas.

-Tim

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