- What is wordcircle?
Wordcircle is a course management tool focused on the needs of teachers and students looking to collaborate online. The product was designed with certain basic features in mind. In its initial release, the product includes a calendar, discussion board and course materials (files) module as well as a project module for students to store journal entries and documents related to teacher and self-assigned activities.
While there are many course management tools like this, not many are easy to use from an educative or administrative standpoint. The user interface is intuitive and clear as is the maintenance of courses and the system itself.
Currently, wordcircle is being used by a handful of academic institutions mostly in the United States. The first group to help define and test the system is now using it successfully at Mills College in Oakland, California. The product is very new and basic, but so far the feedback has been enthusiastic.
If you would like your course to be hosted on the wordcirlce.org website, please register and dig into the instructions provided in the help section. If you would rather run the application on your own server, you can find the source code on sourceforge
- What will the next version include?
The next major release of wordcircle (3.0) will include some features for creating lessons and units - a framework for guiding students through the course in a structured way. There is a possibility that this version
will also include an assessment module for multiple choice or free-form quizzes. Finally, a rubric feature may appear in a minor release - providing teachers with a structured way to indicate how students will be assessed in any of the work that they submit.
In the future, wordcircle will also be available in different languages. If you are interested in helping out, send Matt and email (address at the bottom of this page) and tell him what language you speak and what your availability is. Translation is straightforward - Matt will send you a word document of English phrases - you will respond with the list of translations.
- Who wrote this product?
Matt Reider is a Science teacher currently working with an educational foundation in California. He has ten years of experience in technology and taught in an urban Middle School near Oakland.
The decision to build Wordcircle came during Matt's masters work at Mills College. One of his professors asked if he could provide some sort of bulletin board for students to communicate about subject matter during the week. Over time, the needs of the students / professor grew as did the functionality and requirements of the application. What resulted is a relatively powerful course management tool designed with simplicity and usability in mind.
- Where can I get the source code?
PHP developers can
download the latest version of wordcircle at Sourceforge. Make sure to read the help documents to learn about the proper installation of the software.
- Is there a support forum?
There sure is, though is is a little quiet while things get started.
You can access the support forum at http://wordcircle.org/forum/. Please post bugs, suggestions and comments here instead of the Sourceforge bulletin board.
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