Piazza vs Prulu
https://www.facebook.com/groups/onlinelearningcollective/permalink/740080259956008/
If you miss Piazza, have a look at Prulu, which is still free
Digital Literacy for St. Cloud State University
https://www.facebook.com/groups/onlinelearningcollective/permalink/740080259956008/
If you miss Piazza, have a look at Prulu, which is still free
From: The EDUCAUSE Blended and Online Learning Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:BLEND-ONLINE@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Sharon Strauss
Sent: Friday, June 03, 2016 10:46 AM
To: BLEND-ONLINE@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
Subject: Re: [BLEND-ONLINE] Looking for private, Reddit-style vote up/down discussion tool
Hello,
Thanks for all the online and offline responses. A quick summary of where I am with this project, and the various solutions offered.
Piazza–Piazza will integrate with our LMS via LTI and we do have it. As far as I can tell, after some initial enthusiasm for it a few years ago, nobody here has been using. Thus, I cannot speak to the spam issue that Nina raised. Still, I looked at it and do not see any vote up/down option on it. It is structured more as a Q & A organizer. There is an option for professors to rate an answer as good or bad, but that it is different from a popular vote.
WordPress Theme or Plugin–I found a couple of vote up/down WordPress solutions. However, as far as I can tell, none are actively maintained. The most recent I saw is a couple of years old.
Google Moderator–This looks like it may have been just what we want, but Google retired the program last year. Currently you just get the message, “We’ve retired Google Moderator. The site is no longer available in any form, but you can get to data from past Moderator series through our “Download your Data” tool.
Brightspace–May work for those that have it, but we do not.
Canvas–Perhaps another area where it beats Moodle. However, we do not have it and I’m not sure we want to get it at this time.
Drupal–This might work! I did not see an up/down vote option with http://skill-tree.org, but it seems there are a few options. I’m looking into this further.
Commercial options–I got suggestions for commercial software such as http://crowdicity.com and https://www.uservoice.com/. Both seem like they could work, but I don’t know if we have a budget for this.
FYI, I got more detail from the professor about the project. I learned he is not looking for a classroom solution. He is looking to lead a potentially sensitive and controversial campus-wise conversation. Thus, this might not be the best place to have posted. Still, maybe someone else on the list will also find this useful.
-Sharon
—
Sharon Strauss
Instructional Technology Services
IITS
Haverford College
sstrauss@haverford.edu
610-896-4916
Related story on the IMS blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2014/01/12/cms-course-management-systemsoftware-alternatives/
In a new book, The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere, author Kevin Carey distills a brave new world in which a myriad of lower-cost solutions–most in their infancy–threaten to upend the four-year, high-tuition business model by which colleges and universities have traditionally thrived.
Using cloud-based e-textbooks and course materials, Rafter helps campus bookstores digitize their offerings and keep their prices low, allowing them to regain the market share they were losing to other stores and course-materials marketplaces.
2. Piazza
Piazza is an online study room where students can anonymously ask questions to teachers and other students. The best answers get pushed to the top through repeated user endorsement.
As do the above two companies, InsideTrack sells its services to universities. It provides highly personalized coaching to students and it helps colleges assess whether their technology and processes are equipped to measure student progress. nsideTrack recently announced a partnership with Chegg, through which it will provide its coaching services directly to students.
If you attended a four-year school, then you know the feeling of receiving relentless requests for alumni donations. USEED is like Kickstarter for school fundraising:
One of Inc.‘s 30-Under-30 companies from 2013, Course Hero is an online source of study guides, class notes, past exams, flash cards, and tutoring services.
This is another site offering shared learning tools from students worldwide. Quizlet
according to Tony Wan’s superb story on EdSurge.
Other companies on this list provide services to schools or students. The Minerva Project is, literally, a new school.
In its own way, Dev Bootcamp is also a new school. Its program allows you to become a Web developer after a 19-week course costing under $14,000.
Founded by Thiel Fellow Dale Stephens (who took $100,000 from Peter Thiel to not go to college), The UnCollege Movement provides students with a 12-month Gap Year experience for $16,000.
Founded by Stanford computer science professor Sebastian Thrun, Udacity creates online classes through which companies can train employees. AT&T, for example, paid Udacity $3 million to develop a series of courses, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The tagline says it all: “Free online courses from top universities.” Indeed, Coursera’s partners include prestigious universities worldwide.
In a nonprofit joint venture, MIT and Harvard created their own organization offering free online courses from top universities. Several other schools now offer their courses through EdX, including Berkeley, Georgetown, and the University of Texas system.
CMU’s OLI is another example of a nonprofit startup founded by a school to ward off its own potential disruption.
Founder Michael Saylor has been musing on how technology can scale education since he himself was an undergrad at MIT in the early ’80s. Anyone, anywhere, can take courses on Saylor.org for free.
Founded by Mozilla, Open Badges is an attempt to establish “a new online standard to recognize and verify learning.”
Calling itself the “future of certificate management,” Accredible is the company that provides certification services for several of the online schools on this list, including Saylor.org and Udacity.
http://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/04/01/for-a-better-flip-try-moocs.aspx
by “MOOC-ifying” the large course, she was able to offer more in-class activities and standardize the student experience across sections.
Integrating other technologies in D2L
Desire2Learn (D2L) is the MnSCU purchased commercial product of CMS.
Prior to D2L, MnSCU paid license to WebCT. WebCT merged with Blackboard, which at the moment is the largest CMS.
in the first decade of the 21st century, dozens of commercial CMS products appeared on the market, but they were gradually absorbed mostly by Blackboard (BB). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Course_Management_System
The advent of Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs and wikis offered viable alternative to the commercial CMS. Further, open source products such as Drupal and Sakai posed additional competition to commercial CRS.
Last but not least, with the advent of cloud computing, a new generation of products are competing with BB and D2L
Alternatives to D2L:
Moodle, Drupal, Sakai
Edmodo, Sophia (http://www.sophia.org/), Piazza, Prulu
http://www.quora.com/Who-are-competitors-or-other-services-similar-to-Edmodo
http://www.quora.com/E-learning/What-companies-are-Piazzas-direct-competition-in-the-edTech-space
http://wazmac.com/discussion/edmodo-v-schoology-v-moodle/
Mukurtu CMS (http://mukurtu.org) is a free and open source community archive platform and content management system built on Drupal 7
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