[school-discuss] Documentation/wiki (seed data)

[Justin <jriddiough@xxxxxxxxx>]

I want to start a thread to expand on the ideas that Chris Gregan, John Munro, and Jim Stockford were just discussing in the Live CD: DIY vs. Distribution thread.  

Please stay with me for a second as I explain this - just a brainstorm. I'm looking at this from the perspective of what would be an effective way of gathering and presenting this sort of information to our audience.  
As I've been working on the website and following the traffic to the different pages, I've found that one of the case studies stands out as far as getting hits - which is 
http://www.schoolforge.net/education-case-studies/free-software-used-teaching-first-grade-students-read-write-and-speak-digits-and-letters

Since July, this page has had 412 unique views.  The average user is spending 1:41 on the page, but unfortunately the bounce rate (people that visit this page and then leave the website without viewing other pages) is around 75%.  

The next most popular case studies is one on Thin clients, with 285 unique views, and about one minute spent on the page with a similar bounce rate.

Why is the first one so much more popular?  I think it's based on the fact that when teachers are looking for how to do something, they open up their browser, point it at a search engine and enter "teaching first graders how to read."  I think this is the starting place to answer Chris's question "How do we learn about the tool's existence? More importantly, how do we implement the tool to our advantage without wasting time and effort?"  So, I would propose that if we want to look at ways to provide documentation that would reach an audience, that we first compile/brainstorm a list of common goals that teachers face, work on creating narratives that describe how this was accomplished (what software was used, etc)  I think the items that Jim outlined are very important, but unless a teacher has read something that leads them to Linux - they may never even think to wonder how CLI works.  

From these broader, goal based subjects, we could provide the references for further information - once someone has decided that their goals would be met using this method, they would naturally take the next step of learning what it would take to implement this.  Maybe this would be considered a top-down approach?  Start with broader, less specific information as far as the technical details..

So, just to make up some generic goals (found by reviewing common search phrases):
teaching kids to read
teaching kids to write (their name, numbers, a short story, a paragraph)
teaching kids math
teaching kids about money

I think the texts would read as a basic lesson plan that features how free software or linux was used in accomplishing the goal.  We just have to make sure that there is a clear path from a user finding one of these narratives where they ask 'how do I..." to implementation.  

This also has a benefit that open educational resources could be highlighted.  

If we do this, we need high quality, edited/reviewed seed narratives for a wiki type presentation (I'd say at least 5).  I think this would work best if someone (or a couple people) could spearhead the efforts and are willing to define a list of common goals, and take the time to either interview others or write up their experience. We could even work out a template, but I would prefer that someone comfortable contributing as a writer/editor reviews them before publishing.  

Justin