This document discusses developing a curriculum mapping system for Monarch Academy using Drupal. It begins with an overview of curriculum mapping and its benefits for various stakeholders. It then discusses choosing Drupal as the platform due to its extensibility through custom modules and themes. Goals for the new system include usability for different user groups, integration of social and rich media features, and clearly communicating information. Next steps involve further research, prototyping, and developing an initial version of the system with plans for future refinement.

1. Information Culture
From Online Education to Social Media to
Curriculum Mapping
Information Culture

2. Information Culture
Topics Presented
1 The History of Online Learning
2 Drupal Open Source Application Framework
3 Technology Impacts on Media
4 Gamification within Education and Advanced Simulations
5 Motion Graphics and Conveying a Message
6 Web Development Future Career – Approaching the Semantic Web
7 Usability – A Case Study of a User Research Project
8 Web 2.0, Social Networking and Social Media in General
Information Culture
Page  2

3. Information Culture
The Digital Divide
Addressing the Challenges
In this current day and age we are
witnessing the advancement of
technology at a rate never seen before.
As a result, people are relying on
technology to a greater extent each
and every day. According to DiMaggio
et al, “The digital revolution is the first
major technological change that has
occurred after the emergence of
federal social science funding and the
expansion of research universities in
the 1960s (2004).
* http://forrestdoud.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/digital-divide-versus-digital-inequality/
Information Culture
Page  3

4. Information Culture
Pew Internet Research: Findings
While increased internet adoption and the rise of mobile connectivity have reduced many gaps in technology access over the
past decade, for some groups digital disparities still remain
 One in five American Adults do not use the Internet
 Senior citizens, those who prefer to take our interviews in Spanish
rather than English, adults with less than a high school education,
and those living in households earning less than $30,000 per year
are the least likely adults to have internet access.
 Among adults who do not use the internet, almost half don‟t go online
because they don‟t think the internet is relevant to them.
 Most have never used the internet before, and don‟t have anyone in
their household who does.
 The 27% of adults living with disability in the U.S are significantly
less likely than adults without a disability to go online (54% vs. 81%).
 Though overall internet adoption rates have leveled off, significant
differences in use remain, generally related to age, household
income, and educational attainment.
* http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Digital-differences/Overview.aspx Information Culture

5. Information Culture
Moving on to Curriculum Mapping
Information Culture
Page  5

6. Information Culture
Curriculum Mapping
What is Curriculum Mapping?
 Process of documenting lessons,
activities and assessment methods
used within different grade levels and
classes within an educational
institution.
 In recent years web-based
technology solutions have been
implemented to provide real-time
access to vital curriculum data and
reports, enabling school
administration to ensure there are no
gaps between grade levels.
Information Culture
Page  6

7. Information Culture
Curriculum Mapping – Targeting all User Groups
School Administrators Teachers Parents and Relatives
 A dashboard system can  Curriculum Mapping systems  By providing an accessible
provide administrators a can provide teachers a tool to system, it is easier to can
means to be able to manage update, document and share keep track of where their child
curriculum across grade lesson plans with others. should be academically.
levels.  Common core standards are  Parents and guardians will
 Management of learning more easily tracked to ensure have an opportunity to
outcomes and learning lessons are fulfilling the reinforce at home the focus of
opportunities across different required objectives. learning that takes place at
elements of the curriculum. school.
* Proposed Curriculum Mapping Application
Information Culture
Page  7

8. Information Culture
Monarch Academy
Research Study
 Monarch Academy has informally
implemented a form of Curriculum
Mapping using desktop applications.
 The current system has not been
centralized, nor easily accessible by
staff and administrators.
 Commercial tools were researched;
however none met the unique
requirements of Expeditionary
Learning.
 Atlas Rubicon came closest to
meeting the school‟s requirements.
Information Culture
Page  8

9. Information Culture
Atlas Rubicon and Oakland School System
Atlas is a Web-based curriculum management tool that
electronically: Incorporates curriculum mapping, tracks gaps
and repetition in instruction, addresses the Why in
performance testing, aligns curriculum to benchmarks and
standards, produces updated reports to encourage
partnerships, facilitates sharing of ideas and communicating
them rapidly across buildings, schools and grades and
shares requirements with students.
 Oakland Public School system has implemented Atlas
Rubicon for all grade levels.
 They provide a public website for parents and guardians to
review courses, units and other curriculum information.
 In a separate study I am testing the current system that
Oakland uses as an exploratory study in determining what
works well and what doesn‟t in the current system.
Information Culture
Page  9

10. Information Culture
Planning the Ideal Curriculum Mapping System
 Building, testing and deploying a
workable solution for Monarch Academy
by quarter 1 of 2014.
Building
 Choosing an architecture based on
either an existing framework or
technology stack.
Choosing Architecture
 Exploratory Research, Requirements
Gathering and Proposal Acceptance.
Gathering Initial Exploratory Research
Information Culture
Page  10

11. Information Culture
Choosing the Right Architecture
 A custom built application could be developed using
ColdFusion, ASP.NET or PHP.
 Provides greatest flexibility in design and development
choices along with a greater sense of ownership.
 Potentially take a much longer time to develop than
building from a ready-made solution.
 Content Management Systems are a good alternative to
building a custom solution as much of the heavy lifting has
been taken care of.
 Many CMS‟es are not intuitive in terms of customization
and may impose limitations on development.
 While a CMS can typically be deployed in a shorter amount
of time than a custom solution, the down-side of being
placed in a „box‟ is deal-breaker for many.
Information Culture
Page  11

12. Information Culture
Drupal – Bridging the Development Gap
What is Drupal?
 Drupal is a CMS for Building Dynamic Websites
 Similar to other CMS solutions, Drupal allows you to easily setup
and deploy a dynamic website solution out of the box.
 Drupal is an Application Framework
 Extensive API and Hook system allows for rapid development of
custom modules, themes and add-on APIs for developers. Drupal
is a PHP based CMS/Framework.
 Drupal is a Social and Semantic Web Platform
 Tools have been built into Drupal including support for Resource
Description Framework (RDF) to enable sharing of data with
different web sources. Content type choices and
descriptions are presented when the
 Drupal is a Community editor selects to add new content to
 The Drupal Community is extremely active, especially in the the site.
Washington DC Metro area with conferences, frequent meetups
and local user groups.
Information Culture
Page  12

13. Information Culture
How Drupal Compares to other CMS‟s
 WordPress was primarily built as a blogging engine and later developed into a
CMS. It is great for developing small to medium sized websites, however it
was never built to scale as an enterprise level CMS.
 Drupal assumes at its core there will be many kinds of users with many
requirements. At its core, WordPress on the other hand was developed only
for one type of user in mind and later adapted accordingly.
 Drupal provides more extensive development framework for many different
types of websites: blogs, forums, e-commerce, CRM, intranets, social
networks, news aggregators, wikis, photo galleries, restaurant review sites.
 Joomla is arguably a better product „out-of-the-box‟ as it provides
much of the expected advanced features of a CMS already built-in.
 Drupal on the other hand is limited out-of-the-box, however it
provides a more extensive framework for developing a more
advanced site. “On the same grounds, if you can master it, Drupal
7.0 is the best CMS”
Information Culture
Page  13

14. Information Culture
Drupal Provides for Extensive Customizability
Use Existing Modules Write Custom Code
Drupal has an extensive library Next you will want to develop
of „contrib‟ modules which are your own custom modules to
readily available for download fill in spaces of missing
and customization into any functionality or improve upon
Drupal installation via existing contrib modules.
drupal.org. Select modules for
„some‟ functionality.
Configure the Site Theme it
Site configuration can be an ongoing Theming can occur in parallel to
process which will increase with other development activities.
complexity dependent on the amount Drupal‟s theming engine also
of modules, size of site, user role, provides extensions to the
permissions, content types, etc. modules.
Information Culture
Page  14

15. Information Culture
Goals / Considerations for a Drupal-Based Curriculum Mapping Application
 Should be usable by the target audiences on the target devices.
Usability
 Consideration should be made for different user groups.
 Where possible, integration of technologies like Facebook Connect
The Social Web should be examined.
 Gamification, motion graphics and rich media are all topics that should
Rich Media be considered when presenting a framework for lesson plans,
Experience outcomes and information to potential parents, guardians and
interested stakeholders.
 The system should convey the appropriate messages it needs to assert
Communication
through the various user groups. Collaboration, sharing or resources
of Information and dashboard reporting all should be considered.
Information Culture
Page  15

16. Information Culture
Next Steps
Complete proposal,
begin working with
stakeholders and Carry out contextual Complete version 1 of
create a development inquiry, focus groups, the system and begin
plan. and user interviews. planning for version 2.
Build and test an initial Refine prototype and
prototype of the begin development
proposed system. version 1 of the
application based on
feedack.
Information Culture
Page  16

17. Information Culture
Concluding Thoughts
 Information Culture provided insight into several areas of digital media that I will
be considered during the development of Monarch‟s Curriculum Mapping System.
 Areas of research go outside the scope of this presentation, next semester
Proseminar will flesh out theorical framework for the project and study.
 If the application becomes a success with Monarch, plans to release the code
under open source via a distribution method such as GitHub will be explored.
Information Culture
Page  17

18. Questions?
Information Culture
Page  18