Assuming: You and Me, and Hopefully Good (Opposed to . . . ) Software
When reading a review of the new iMovie ’08 on macworld.com, I was struck by how much hope, belief, educated guessing, and philosophy hardens into assumptions to inform software design. In the review, Macworld says that many of the iDVD integration features have been dropped from iMovie, because Apple believes that the web is the […]
Platforms on Platforms: FB and Education Tools
Facebook dropped their “Courses” function. (To make sure new users knew they weren’t just a college focused site and to give developers a crack at what Facebook now considers a niche.) Developers rush in: Our assumption/prediction is that the Facebook application platform will eventually have a suite of apps for college students. There will be […]
New Red Rover Graphics
Many things are better said with the help of pictures. Here’s a new one from the final Red Rover UI work. It’s definitely a draft and will get replaced fairly soon, but still serves as a quicker “get” than a bunch of text.
Facebook Passing on the Niche Markets
On July 17th, Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, was interviewed by Time Magazine in an article titled, “The Future of Facebook.” The last line of Mark’s answer to this question was most interesting to me: Then on July 25th Facebook posted this blog** in their developer’s corner: Education should deliver relevant connections** to new people, ideas, […]
Sharpening a Pencil
Pencils work when they are sharp. So does marketing. So does information architecture. So does the user interface. So do viral memes. We are sharpening Red Rover. There are so many things we could say about it. Many ways we could describe it. The current challenge is to define the POINT. The one thing we […]
RR Future Function: Activities Dashboard
Advisors would be able to connect to their advisees and see who has joined what and what they are participating in.
This “dashboard” would give them real time to data and help them focus their attention on the students that need it most. (This is a recommendation of the DEEP project, but currently it is pretty difficult to implement without real time involvement info.)
RR Future Function: Txt Msg to Self Tag
The following is the “Future Function” we are exploring for the addition to the Red Rover system. As always, your thoughts are welcome! Future Function A student could text a word to a given number and this word would be added to their tag profile. They would then automatically be added to a group that […]
RR Function: Student Leader Communication
Empowering student leaders requires communication – Red Rover provides the ability to focus communication to those that have opted in (reducing SPAM) and tools to increase the efficacy of communication through multiple channels. How It Works 1. From their group page, student leaders (and advisors if they like) have at least three different ways to […]
RR Function: Group Recommendation
Red Rover automatically makes recommendations on student groups, providing the student with a shortlist of options tailored to their interests. How It Works 1. Based on the tags the student added to Red Rover, the system delivers appropriate groups with matching tags. 2. The student can join the groups with one click (based on the […]
RR Function: Self Tagging
Self tagging is really the heart of the Red Rover system. The process is misleadingly simple, in terms of the power and flexibility the function brings to education.