"Backpack" -- a Course-Hosting Site for the Next Decade

Since I left academia last year, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be an educator in our current landscape. Considering the amount of change we're experiencing with our technology, with funding, and in society, I set out to answer how I could see myself still playing a role in education at a scale I can deal with.

Introducing Backpack

I'm excited to share what I've been up to lately. So far I'm calling it "Backpack", just a little sub-site that has budded off my own personal website. But I think that some of the ideas I've captured might have currency with those of you who want to learn -- or teach -- in a different way.

Features

First of all, as you may know, I love markdown. All my notes, slides, textbook material -- everything -- has been written in it over the past 10 years. Why do I have to convert it? With Backpack, I've created a markdown-enabled front end for all the stuff I've made (and want to make), while letting the styling get out of the way so I can focus on writing. As a learner, you may think -- "how does this help me?" Well, if I'm able to focus on generating content, I can respond more quickly and fix errors, add new material as needed -- it means as an educator I can be more responsive.

Second -- quick question: how do you learn best? Sitting in front of a pre-recorded lecture, then completing an assignment a week later? I would contend that one of the best ways to learn is in small bites -- you learn a concept, then you test your knowledge right away. In a textbook or traditional lecture, you're lucky if you get one example question written out for you beginning to end. What if you could have as many questions as you need?

For that, I've developed a solution for how to embed dynamic, randomized assessments in line with lectures. These assessments can be tuned to the material I am teaching. If I am teaching a dynamics class, it can generate dynamics questions, plots, animations, etc that I can use for asking questions. If I'm teaching robotics, it can draw from libraries in ROS or Python to ask questions. This solution is generic and modular. I see a lot more coming with this, but I'm excited to be able to demonstrate its full potential to you soon. For the instructors out there, it also means you can deliver a different question to each student, to cut down on "answer reuse".

Courses

These tools, along with others I'm working on, will allow me to spend my instruction time on just that -- instruction. I believe that my focus and attention should be spent directly on you, the student. Along with the site itself, I'm working on a number of courses that bring student / teacher interactions to the foreground. I will soon be releasing a continuing course on "Smart Product Design", and envision our role to be tilted much more toward mentor/mentee that student/teacher. In this course, I will encourage you to bring your own project (BYOP) so that I can help you move from your concept or vision to a technical reality. Yes, if you need a lecture on circuits, I can present that, but the focus of this course will be in our weekly interactions in "office hours". If you need more one-on-one time, I might consider a adding different tier of personal mentoring as well.

Community Accountability

In this way, I also hope to foster a sense of community through office hours, and shared projects. I plan on running many of my courses live over streaming video so that enrolled students can participate, hear others' questions, and gain experience and encouragement from their team. Standups, checkins, and other opportunities will generate a sense of accountability from the crowd.

Next Steps

If you're interested in helping me test the site, please create an account and pre-register to help me beta-test my first course, "Dynamic Site Generation with Markdown & Django", starting June 23. Registration will be limited for the time being, so stay tuned!

Dan Aukes