Re: Teachers

[sergey@total-knowledge.com]

> sergey@total-knowledge.com wrote:
>>> First, I disagree that votes should affect anything in the interface.
>>> The
>>> objects should be displayed as the author of the course designed.
>>>
>>
>> I agree with Alexey's disagreement once again. However, I think that
>> votes
>> _should_ affect how interface looks, but it's up to Author and (I
>> emphasize) Teacher to actually change it.
>>
> I am still not sure what we call "Teacher" in our system. From the very
> beginning line between teacher and author wasn't very well defined.
> My vision of "Teacher" role was pretty much "A person that checks
> students' work, gives feedback, and generally interacts with students
> in supporting manner" - in other words, support role. Probably "Expert"
> role that we mentioned in spec is the same thing. I do not see "Teacher"
> as author in any way. It is certainly possible for "Author" to be a
> "Teacher"
> at the same time, but these are two different roles, and neither implies
> the
> other.
> Reasoning:
> 1. Simplify access checking
> 2. Teacher doesn't normally need to modify course (in his teacher role).
> If at any point he/she does, it's possible to either create own course
> based
> on this one, or to talk to original Author and become a Co-author.

I agree with the reasoning but I still have a feeling that Teacher in a
real environment will have to be more than that.
Let's say Teacher finds a spelling error in the Topic title or one of the
problem in the Course has wrong solution. Or one of his students easily
solves all problems and "begs" for something more advanced. Or one of his
students has a financial background and Teacher wants to give him a
problem that relates to it.
What would you do as a teacher? Contact an original author? Send stutends
to another course or teacher?
You'd probably fix the spelling error yourself, fix the wrong solution by
yourself, find the needed problems in the Repository, evaluate them(assign
difficulty level and rating) and make them a part of the Course that you
teach.
I just described an Author behaviour. So, in my understanding from ACL
point of view:
Teacher is an Author who has rights to teach.

Anyways, I've been thinking for quite some time about how different kind
of users interact between each other in UI, how they change their roles
and what's the best and easiest way for them to do it. I'm going to open
new thread "User Roles and UI" soon.


>> It's been enough said about Students behavior already.
> Eh? What specifically?

I meant Alexey and me tried to predict students behaviour regarding voting
in our previous replies on difficulty levels and voting subject.

>>  Authors are usually
>> too sensitive about their creations, tend to love them no matter what,
>> won't be happy if somebody forses them to change it.
> This is absolutely true... when you are talking about work of art. Course
> is
> not a work of art, just like a program is not a work of art. There are
> art aspects
> to it, but they are secondary. Course/text book/etc. are first of all
> functional
> objects, and as such, creating them is lot closer to engineering or
> science work
> then to artistic work. That is why it's very natural (and happens often in
> currently standard media like text books) for course material to have
> multiple
> authors, while this is very rare occurance in an artistic work. This is
> why we
> are focusing on sharing/derivation capabilities in UU so much. This is
> the main
> thing that makes us different from others.
>
> Having said all that, you realize that any tools that we may provide to
> student
> for filtering/sorting/etc. any content based on votes (or any other
> data), we
> aren't forcing any changes on author, right?

I got your point.

>
>>  I recently watched
>> some kid on the beach throwing sand in his mom eyes, then he tried to
>> pee
>> on her head. I'm sure she will still vote that he is the best child in
>> the
>> world, other people(including me) who sow it would have slightly
>> different
>> opinion on this little bastard. That's the main reason I agree with
>> Anatoly on importance of community vote. I would just kick his little
>> ass
>> and stoped these disgraceful goings-on. Unfortunatly it's not up to me
>> or
>> community to change this child, it's up to his mom or his
>> teacher/counselor(if he grow ups and continue peeing on other people
>> heads, then (hopefully!) a community's vote will be taken into account
>> and
>> this recidivist criminal will end up in the prison).
>>
> Doesn't this contradict your previous statement a bit? How do we blend
> them together?

Community that votes to "kick little bastard ass" is analog of
recreational users in UU.
Community that sends bastard to the prison is analog of administrative
unit in UU(like moderator, admin).
My view on this matter is simple - let the
professionals(teachers/counselors in real life, Teachers in UU) do their
job first. If they don't succeed and the "rating" is still low, remove the
criminal from the society(downgrade to lower DL/delete UMO in UU by
Admin).


>> As I mentioned in my previous emails, in my opinion a Teacher is the one
>> who is the most objective in the evaluation of the quality or difficulty
>> level of an UMO. Let him change the Course he teachs.
>>
> What happens when there are multiple teachers on one course?
>> 1. Teacher has the Author opinion on difficulty level of the UMO(he sees
>> how Author structured his Course originally).
>> 2. Teacher checks Students votes/rating on the UMO.
>> 3. Teacher has his own opinion(based on his overall expirience, based on
>> level of the students he teach for this perticular course, his
>> expirience
>> with this particular Author, etc..)
>> 4. Teacher checks public profile of the Author.
>> 5. Teacher checks public profiles of Students that voted, their scores,
>> ratings, marital status, whatever...
>> 6. Teacher makes _his_ decision on this particular UMO difficulty level
>> for the Course _he_ teaches.
>> 7.
>> 	a) Teacher leaves this UMO DL as it is, no changes at all.
>> 	b) Teacher reassigns this UMO to different DL within a Course
>> 	c) Teacher deletes(hides) it from his Students.
>>
>> Now, the question is should we give a Teacher Author's rights, new
>> version
>> of the Course will be created and the Teacher will become Co-Author? I
>> have no strong opinion on this.
>>
>>> Second, eBay voting doesn't work. Every time when you have a good
>>> transaction, you vote positive. However, if you have a bad experience,
>>> you
>>> vote negative, and always receive a negative vote yourself. So, if you
>>> buying rarely, not hundreds of items a year, it's easy to have low
>>> rating.
>>> That's the reason I stopped using eBay.
>>>
>> I see. You don't like low ratings. Me neither.
>> I'm sure that oversensative author hates them too. Why help an ignorant
>> crowd to bash him and change his creation using their negative
>> unsophisticated intelligence?
>> UU should support geniuses, not bring them down.
>> Yeah.
>>
> Voting is one of feedback mechanisms. I don't see how low rating of course
> that targets low-end audience and fails to deliver easy learning curve
> brings
> geniuses down...

I was mostly kidding here.
>
> --
> Ilya A. Volynets-Evenbakh
> Total Knowledge. CTO
> http://www.total-knowledge.com
>
>