Ideas supporting Pathways Meeting discussion - August 4-5, 2010

This is a planning page for recording ideas in support of Pathways Meeting discussions at the August 4-5 Boulder meeting.  

Feel free to add your ideas, comments, more categories, etc. (If you need help with the editor, give Eileen a call: 303-497-8354, or a shoot me an email: eileen@ucar.edu - I"ll walk you through it). 

Meeting goal: Shared vision and understanding of future direction, priorities and measureable goals for NSDL for the next decade. Produce a report and recommendations to be shared with NSF and all NSDL grantees.

 

Meeting Agenda (latest)

 

Project Updates - PWs, please plan to complete a Project Update submission by July 30 - this is a way for all projects to come to the meeting with homework done. Submit own; read others' submissions, so that meeting time is reserved for discussions. Common basic info needed:  Grant name, number, PIs, audiences (part of submission form). Report on progress in these areas, as applicable:

  • technical developments: infrastructure implementation, collaborative use of NSDL services, portal release
  • collection development and collection contribution:  metadata frameworks, harvesting
  • special collections / contextualization
  • outreach / professional development
  • special projects or collaborations

 

Areas of Need - what else would you add?

  • Professional development via NSDL  (from John Moore) - develop online professional development courses to accompany new contextualized collections, as they come online.  Provide teachers and faculty with best practices in using online digital resources, incorporation into classroom strategy - bundled with resources. 
  • Activity Sheets (from Mark McCaffrey): Adding value and context to digital resources through 1) activity sheets that help serve as pedagogical "wrappers" for images, visualizations, videos, animations, podcasts, background materials) and 2) paradata describing how resources are used and customized by educators.

 


Teasing out NSDL value propositions 

1. NSDL as common problem space/arena for solution development. In what areas/categories of work do we have particular expertise? See categories below.

2. Value of NSDL -  to whom? to our users (who/what/where/when/how); to us—our projects, our sponsors; to other agencies/organizations? 

Categories (not comprehensive) - what else would you add?

Leadership and expertise - NSDL provides leadership and expertise via a community of experts from variety of disciplines, educational levels, and types of organizations (universities, colleges, museums/science centers, public tv stations) with knowledge of: 

  • educational systems
  • access to and know-how on reaching educators
  • pedagogical expertise
  • developing methods for evaluating effectiveness of online resources, multi-disciplinarily

 

Collaborative nexus for other STEM stakeholders - NSDL provides access for other potential partners to:

  • make contributions to, and disseminate via NSDL - leveraging trusted sources/brand
  • serve and reach educational end users
  • provide resources, collections, special collections - perceived as source of quality content
  • serve as a test bed for innovative developments (in both learning/teaching and technology)
  • leverage open source technical infrastructure and services (TNS)

 

Contextualized collection building:

  • ChemEd DL (e.g. Periodic Table Live resource pak)
  • MSP2 math and science resource guides
  • TD special collection and student activity formats
  • CSERD JOCSE - Journal of Computational Science Education (JOCSE) http://jocse.org/
  • NEED: suggestion from John Moore: an NSDL assessment library. Enabling better assessment by classroom teachers to measure student progress. From Education Week article: " Of course, teachers cannot create every high-quality assessment they need. States should gather tasks that have been approved by skilled educators into "libraries" which teachers can access as they need. Using already-vetted instruments will contribute to ensuring the quality of classroom-based evidence of student learning." 
  • CLEAN (from Mark McCaffrey): Reviewing and annotating climate and energy related learning activities and other digital resources; in the future: adding value through activity sheets and "paradata" describing how educators use and customize resources.
  • SMILE - Topical contextualization pages, lists, resources for informal educator subgroups

 

Social networking/media use: e.g. Kim Lightle and MSP2's experience in the social networking arena serves as a resource to other Pathways and NSDL projects 

  • MSP2
  • ChemEd DL?
  • TD?
  • SMILE - Expert Voices, Constant Contact, and FaceBook; Using Open ID as an option to logging in.
  • CLEAN - (from Tamara Ledley) this is on the agenda for the CLEAN project in the future.  We are working on doing some of this with the Climate Literacy Network.  While this group is very active the social networking component is very primative.

 

Personalization services? what features?

  • ComPADRE?
  • TD
  • AMSER
  • MSP2
  • Engineering
  • MatDL
  • MathDL
  • BEN
  • CLEAN?
  • MathPath?
  • Teaching with Data?
  • Ensemble
  • CSERD
  • SMILE - User profiles, SMILE widget, commenting, and badges.
  •  

    Outreach and Professional Development

    • Professional development connected to specialized collections release (e.g. Periodic Table Live!) - template? define requirements...
    • Developing regularized feeds of NSDL news and content to NSF OLPA news channels 
    • Developing improved description/display/feeds of PW and projects content on nsdl.org
    • Working with RC to develop 2010-2011 Brown Bags, NSTA/NSDL web seminars
    • TD Public TV workshop protocols and other Pathway opportunities

     

    Wrestling with standards

  • Teachers' Domain
  • Engineering Pathway
  • Project 2061
  • Strand Map Service / Science Literacy Maps
  • CLEAN and new Strand maps and Environmental Education guidelines
  •  

    Metrics / evaluation

  • Metrics Working Group report - July 2010 final
  • EIESC work  2000-2008
  • TD metrics reporting system
  •  

    Sustainability options:

    • Monetizing services - 
      • Engaging with textbook publishers - models - how working or not working?
        • Engineering?  
        • ChemEd DL - Textbook TOC 
        • MathDL? 
      • Providing insfrastructure services to other DLs/collection builders:
        • NSDL TNS - built in to NSF solicitation process
        • Engineering - success/status on service provision? 
        • AMSER/Internet Scout - CWIS, other - success/status on service provision?
        • other?
    • Professional society sponsorship - what are the various models? 
      • MathDL ->  MAA  
      • ChemEd DL -> ACS 
      • MatDL -> alliances created with materials science societies 
      • Engineering -> alliances with engineering societies
    • Leveraing the overall NSF Investment - what might be some models to propose?
      • Engage with NSF-funded resource centers to encourage uses of NSDL as dissemination mechanism
      • Engage with other NSF divisions and programs to include NSDL in future RFPs for outreach and broader impact (e.g., like CCLI/TUES, ITEST,DRK12, ...)