[school-discuss] wordcircle version 1.02

[mreider@wordcircle.org]

Hello,

A few weeks ago I posted to schoolforge announcing the release of
wordcircle - a web based application for students and teachers to
collaborate.  Since then I received a number of helpful responses and
questions.

I am writing now to let you know that I took these responses to heart and
coded the latest version of wordcircle - now in its first release.

I built wordcircle to help one of my professors.  We looked around the web
for applications that did exactly what she had in mind.  After trying a
number of systems, we decided to roll our own.  Moodle is quite good, but
not as simple as we would like. Nicenet is the closest thing we found to
meet our needs.

This latest version includes the following features and changes.

-Ability to create an online course comprised of thoughts(news), calendar
items, discussions and documents that support the class.

-Anyone can create a course or sign up for someone else's course.  This is
a change from the initial release where teachers / students were two
distinct groups.

-The entire look / feel is completely controlled by one style sheet.  This
style sheet is well commented to assist you in changing the color schemes
etc.  I also broke the header / footer and welcome message into their own
html files so that you can edit the logo and anything else that does not
look or read the way you want it to.

-I wrote a help document for using as well as installing the application

-The application now installs itself.

I would really enjoy having more people to work with on this project.  If
you are thinking of putting class materials online or augmenting your
class with some online materials or discussion, perhaps you could try it
out and work with me on what new features / changes meet your needs.
Already, I am planning to add some kind of assessment engine and / or
rubric generator.

If you have made it this far in the email, I would just like to say "thank
you" for spending the time and I hope to receive your support in making
this application something that helps teachers / students work together in
productive ways.

Sincerely,

Matt Reider