Hi folks,
Wouldn’t it make sense to allow a teacher to import his lesson notes, units, smart blocks, etc. into Gibbon. According to my information that data must be edited using Gibbon. A teacher may prefer another system to create lesson notes, right?
Are there any ideas or plans in this regard?
Kind regards,
Roman
Roman,
Yes, this would be an interesting idea, but I wonder how many teachers would go to the effort of putting together a CSV, or some other structured file of date, to run such an import. Having more import routines is always good, just really need to see a strong use case before deciding to assign limited resources. At any rate, thanks for the input : )
Ross
Hi Ross,
Thanks for your feedback!
You are raising an interesting question. I’m mostly working with teachers in the developing world. Some of them have lesson notes available mostly handwritten or in word files. My hope is that using Gibbon they will be able to move a step further toward a digitized system allowing the teacher to import them into Gibbon, update and refine them, use them during lessons and finally export them again.
School administrations in developing countries often struggle to implement a syllabus for a number of reasons. Gibbon offers a really interesting way for a teacher to organize his lessons and to keep the time frame available. I have been asked to prepare an initial lesson plan for the teachers based on the agreed syllabus. However, this is a rather difficult task without import function, right? I’m sure it could be done with CSV but there may be better formats out there.
What approach would you suggest?
Kind regards,
Roman
Roman,
I see your situation. I don’t think that an import is the best option here. Let me explain why. As well as the Lesson Planner, Gibbon has a Unit Planner. This allows the creation of units, which can contain lessons. In their more advanced form, lesson content can be stored within a unit, in Smart Blocks. Smart Blocks, once set up, can be used to rapidly create lesson plans in bulk, based on the timings for each block. An import would not help you, as you would need to cut up content into blocks. This takes time upfront, but the future time savings are huge. You can see more on this approach at https://gibbonedu.org/support/teachers/planner/approaches-to-planning.
If you want a Skype demo, let me know, and I can show you how some of my teaching and learning content works as Smart Blocks.
Ross
Hi Ross,
Thanks a lot for your input!
I must admin that the gibbon approach with smart blocks, etc. is still a bit unclear to me. Your idea to come up with a demo is great! However, I would rather suggest a youtube video, so I can study it in detail. It would also allow more people to benefit and understand your concept. Is that possible?
Kind regards,
Roman
Roman,
Yes, it is possible, and it has been done! Check out the video at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrV4D1cKStw
Ross
Roman,
This post might help as well: https://gibbonedu.org/support/teachers/planner/approaches-to-planning. You will see the video at the bottom of the post.
Ross
Thanks a lot for this new video! I’ll get back to you soon, Roman.
Hi Ross,
Wow, really well done! This video is helping to get a better understanding of the gibbon way of planning lessons using smart blocks. Cool…
For those who didn’t know like me, gibbon contains sample data regarding units and lessons:
- Unit planner: Course: ICT07 (2015-2016)
- Lesson planner: Class: ICT07.1
Kind regards,
Roman
Roman,
Happy to help. Hope it works well, and yes, enjoy the sample work : )
I have a full 3-year ICT course aimed at 10-14 year olds if you want it. All under Creative Commons, all using smart blocks.
Ross
Hi Ross,
This sounds interesting! How can I get it?
Kind regards,
Roman
Thanks Ross, planning lessons using smart bloks new videotutorial help me , great.
I m too intersted to import your ICT units , only for testing, how can i get it?
Iulian
Roman, Iulian,
OK, now I need to think of a practical way to do this. Ideally Gibbon would support uploading and downloading of units via a global database, so teachers could widely share and make use of the sharing of others. Not sure I have that level of coding in me right now, with lots of v12 projects going on.
Give me a bit of time to think about how this might work. I have added it as item 36 in the v12 todo list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10Fv86EXduicyFHgFl0_CLBBf07S4g7ZSBbeop17HsLM/edit#gid=0
In the meantime, this is a little out of date, but this course uses embedded units from Gibbon, and is what I taught 2 years ago: http://rossparker.org/year-7-9-ict-course. Might give you a flavour of what I will be sharing.
Thanks,
Ross
Hi Ross,
I would suggest a format similar to scorm. Advantages of scorm are that it is platform independent and open. It therefore allows the creator to use a different tool for editing. Scorm is used to package all content of a course and is supported e.g. by Moodle. It may not exactly meet your requirements but could be a start.
Anyway, this task is a big challenge! Good luck!
Kind regards,
Roman
Hi Ross,
I hope that import, export & update of units and lesson plans can significantly impact gibbon and its user base. I’m also willing to come in as a anonymous sponsor if these additions become part of core gibbon and if you do the audit.
Kind regards,
Roman
Roman,
SCORM is something we should definitely look at. I will see how we get on with the features in v12, and what we can do.
Cheers,
Ross
Hi Ross,
Currently, my focus is on importing syllabus course units into gibbon. For the start, I plan to basically create a template by splitting the units into lessons and smart blocks myself. The teachers will then take it from there.
Since there is no import function in sight yet, I can do this directly within gibbon. Is this the right approach?
I’m afraid the above is rather vague, right? Let me know, if you need more info for a qualified response. See this comment for more info: https://ask.gibbonedu.org/discussion/comment/1072/#Comment_1072. I can also send you a sample of a syllabus.
Please let me know!
Kind regards,
Roman
Roman,
I think this sounds like a good way to proceed. Get started, and let me know how you get on.
Thanks,
Ross
Hi Ross,
Ok, I’ll get started and get back to you in case of problems. Give me a few days.
Kind regards,
Roman
Roman, at current we don’t have the resources to look at building a SCORM compliant unit export/import function. I am going to delay the item into v13, but can’t make any promises it will happen there. Apologies for the inconvenience.