Classroom Salon

Classroom SalonAnanda Gunawardena (guna)Computer Science&David KauferEnglish

Carnegie Mellon UniversityWhat we bring to the project

A human-centric viewA machine-centric viewSalon visionTo extract and organize knowledge around small groupsWhat Salon isA platform that supports social learningA content-centric platform that allows deep discussion of all content related to the courseA discovery platform that allows users to find other interesting usersA platform that allows teachers to get to know their students betterA platform that allows students to get to know each otherA platform that protects privacy of studentsWhat Salon is notIt is not a course management systemIt is not an ebook platformIt is not just another highlighting toolIt is not a document management system

We think most educational technology systems are designed from a system centric view

Do not support teacher thinking or workflowSalon is designed with a user-centric viewSalon handles most course related tasks betterTeacher ask students to read and prepare for classNo other platform supports reading like Salon doesSalon tracks and records student activitiesSocial nature of the platform encourages active participationHow do you track reading with other platforms/processes?Course management systems?Learning management systems?Reading groups?Polling/surveys?Track Reading

Teacher ask students to complete homeworkSalon enables small group homework completionIndividuallyAs a groupHow do other systems manage this process?Submitting completed homework online or on paperComplete homework

Students have a lot of questions about the assignmentSalon enables immediate clarification on the context How do other systems handle this?Discussion boardsattachmentsHelp sessionsClarify Assignments

There are no good ways to measure students prior knowledgeSalon enables prior knowledge detection activitiesHow do other systems handle this?Pre course surveysPolling1-1 meetingsMeasure Prior Knowledge

Tracking the activities of studentsDash board is a way to track activities of each/all student(s)

Salon is SocialPeople I am interested in

Current activities of those I am interested in

These people are interested in me

I manage my Salons

How to create this social connection?

Click on anyones picture and find their interestsSalon Teacher ToolsMonitoring Class Activities

Monitoring Individual Students

Thomas ManziniPerformance in each unit How time spentannotationsCommenting on othersresponses discussionsSalons Created: 2Documents uploaded: 6Annotations Made: 56Responses Provided: 40Commenting on others: 42Open Discussions: 38

FilterSalon is research basedTone matching dictionaries Expert humanistUsability

Semantic similarity algorithmsAdaptive Book technologiesScalability and performance

Alex CheekInteraction designInformation design

Joanna WolfeReading and Annotations

How learning works

Eberly Center for Learning Carnegie Mellon UniversitySalon TechnologySalon Technology and StatisticsFlexible and Scalable platformasp.net, C#, Flex Transition into CloudVirtual Salon serverphp, html5, js Mobile SalonAndroid Tablet/phone Supportipad/iphone in the works (target date: January 2012)StatisticsCurrent users: 8000+Documents uploaded : ~ 5637Salons created: ~ 670Separate Salon server Deployments: Grover City Collegehttp://classroomsalon.gcc.edu Funding and company StatusFunded byNational Science FoundationGates FoundationCMUSpin-off StatusSeed Funding byinnovation worksHeinz EndowmentBusiness Relation DiscussionsMc-Graw HillHPIntel CapitalYahoo!Thank you