mguhlin

Walled Garden Solutions Revisited

Often, we are called upon to come up with solutions for sharing ideas and information with a wide audience. In the past the process for these solutions was to do the following:

  1. Identify a need.
  2. Do some research on the tools available, especially considering the cost of the software or service.
  3. Present a proposal outlining the best tool for the job, if such a tool existed. And, if the proposal was approved, figure out what budget code to pay for the tool.

This 3-step process might also involve presentations to stakeholders, including upper administration. After all, with any significant purchase, administration has to be involved.
Then, free, open source software (FOSS) came into the picture. While many of us are familiar with FOSS by our experience with OpenOffice–a popular alternative to MS Office that just came out with version 3.0!–and the GIMP as an alternative to Adobe Photoshop/Fireworks, we often forget that server-based solutions abound as well. While the process can remain the same, you can focus on the solution rather than the cost of working with a vendor.

This can save time and increase productivity.

This blog entry shares 5 solutions that I currently am using in my school district. Each solution depends on the freely available Windows Apache MySQL/PHP (WAMP). You can find more details online.

1) Online Discussion Board – Moodle – http://www.moodle.org
Moodle is a serious alternative to Blackboard, and you can now find increasing numbers of K-16 institutions and non-profits using it. Cost? Free. Be sure to read Doing the Moodle Mambo.

2) Web Page/Site Content Management System – Joomla – http://www.joomla.org/
(some prefer DrupalEd – http://funnymonkey.com/drupaled-latest)

Need a way to manage your school districts web sites? You could pay quite a bit for a 3rd party solution, or learn how to setup Joomla (or any of the over 50 content management systems available). Find out more at http://www.cmsmatrix.org

3) Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) – phpMyFAQ – http://www.phpmyfaq.de/
Managing a web page of frequently asked questions can get tiresome. Create an RSS-feed subscribable, database-backed web site that people can access via Bloglines.com/NetVibes or some other RSS aggregator, as well as search via the web interface.

4) Online Survey Tool – UCCASS – http://www.bigredspark.com/survey.html
While some use SurveyMonkey and other web tools, you can easily set up your own web survey tool on your computer. This gives you control over data submitted.

5) Wiki – MediaWiki – http://www.mediawiki.org
If you’ve seen Wikipedia, then you know what a wiki is. It is a way for people to collaborate on a document, revising, editing and composing. It can be open or restricted access. While many are starting to use commercial wiki services that offer free service to educators (e.g. Wikispaces.com or PBWiki), you might want to set up a wiki in your district for revision of certain documents.

What are you waiting for? These solutions have already been tested in education and business environments. Abandon the old model of sitting around waiting for administration to free up precious funds, and implement solutions that work!

For fun, here are a few more Web 2.0 apps to help you create the walled garden:

Quotes to Ponder

We live in an era where people can publish at will. Relevance is and will increasingly be a function of digital accessibility. You want to be relevant? Give away your ideas. Want to become irrelevant? Create a walled garden that keeps out more people than it lets in. You’ll be sure to limit your audience, and therefore reduce your relevance and potential impact on the world. Sharing ideas. It’s what the Internet was founded for, and what it is still all about.

Source: Wesley Fryer, Moving at the Speed of Creativity

“It’s about making it clear that you are open and that you are not building a walled garden of content or trying to hold people hostage in any way.”

Source: Josh Petersen, 43Things.com

The following list is useful if you want to create a “walled garden” of safe Web 2.0 tools you can use within your school’s intranet, or even Internet, but have complete control over. So, a quick review of the tools available for those who want to “lock” things down and eliminate social networking OUTSIDE of school environment during the school day:

Setting Up PHP/MySQL

Once you setup PHP/MySQL on your server, you’ll be set and ready to go with the following applications. However, getting to that point might require some technical expertise. You can see some examples (screenshots) of walled garden applications.

Quick Setup Process

  1. Install WAMP/MAMP/XAMPP as appropriate on a computer that will work as a server.
  2. After installing the software, download your walled garden application of choice (e.g. WordPress, Moodle) and put it in the appropriate folder (usually “htdocs” in an Apache server setting).
  3. Use a program like SQLYog (Windows), CocoaMYSQL (Mac) to create the database. The walled garden app will create all the necessary tables to house your data.

Note that you can follow this visual installation guide for WAMP? and SQLYog? to see what this might look like.

Software Tools

  • Windows Software
  • Macintosh Software
    • MAMP Server: Easy setup of Apache server, PHP and MySQL on on Macintosh OS X
    • CocoaMySQL: Allows you to interact with the database using Structured Query Language (SQL) statements.

Once you are setup with MySQL/PHP on your server, you’re ready to install any or all of the walled garden applications on that computer.

Blogging Tools

Service Substitution: Blogmeister, Blogspot, WordPress.com, Learnerblogs

  • b2Evolution: Enables you to control/moderate comments once certain hacks (ZIP file of hacks we use in my district) are applied, set up a “master” blog with multiple sub-blogs (each with its own RSS feed) inside, easy user management and assignment of permissions, and more. This is the solution we use for managing publication of online student writing and blogging (when it arises).
    View Example
  • WordPress.org: Everyone knows about this tool, but it’s powerful. If you’re not sure how to install it, you can always follow this brief tutorial. I have hope that Multi-user WordPress will eventually work well.

Regular WordPress example

  • Elgg: Blogs, e-portfolio and social networking; granular permissions.

Podcasting Tools

Service Substitution: Podomatic, Odeo

Wikis

Service Substitution: Wikispaces, PBWiki

  • MediaWiki: Although I’ve looked at different wikis you can install on your own server, I keep coming back to MediaWiki for ease of use.
  • TikiWiki: Powerful wiki with user admin rights, but lacks the “open-ness” (as far as I can tell) that MediaWiki enjoys. Nevertheless, it can be powerful.
  • PmWiki
  • DokuWiki
  • See also WikiMatrix to compare various wiki engines.

Content Management Systems

Service Substitution:: web page editors like Dreamweaver/Frontpage Allow easy management, creation, and editing of web pages and sites by non-techie users.

Image Gallery with Tagging and RSS Publishing Enabled

Service Substitution:: Flickr

Online Discussion Board

Service Substitution: Blackboard/WebCT

Frequently Asked Questions

Service Substitution:: ???

Online Survey Tool

Service Substitution: SurveyMonkey

Online Radio

Calendar Management with RSS support

Social Bookmarking Tools

Service Substitution:: Del.icio.us, Simpy, Blinklist

Maintaining Email Lists

Service Substitution: YahooGroups, Gmail Groups

  • phplist
  • mailman
  • Not sure about these…Bernie Dodge suggested them, but I’m open to suggestions.

Bulk Emailing Software

Service Substitution: None really, I just wanted this category for bulk emailing!

MySQL Backup Tools

Office tools

By the way, if you’re not interested in using these tools and are curious what is out there on the Web, check out All Things Web 2.0.

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