Interactive Tools

SRI is developing a suite of online tools that can be used flexibly across a variety of TRAILS courses.

In Use

The Gallery, Organizer, and Repository of Projects (TRAILS Gorp) is a sourcebook of K-12 products, which we call "curriculets". It contains inspirational and exemplary curriculets, as well as projects produced by students in TRAILS-affiliated courses. Each curriculet (sample) is cataloged in terms of various aspects of Teaching and Learning, Technology, Context, and Design. These categories were carefully selected to highlight important design considerations in the production of educational software. Currently, only TRAILS-affiliated courses can add content to Gorp, but we plan to invite broader contributions in the future.

The Games4Education website is more than just a class website. It's also a collaborative space built for sharing works-in-progress.

In development

The University of Colorado is working on a simple course management system, which employs technology called "Deep Navel" for rapidly building a website from an existing file structure.

Tools we've considered

In the first year of the TRAILS project we experimented with content management systems such as Tiki and Wiki to support TRAILS-affiliated courses. However, we learned that many universities have already made commitments to commercial course management systems such as WebCT and Blackboard. We concluded that it was best to complement such general purpose tools with lighter weight systems oriented specifically around the design of educational technology.

Related Tools

• OpenCourse.org provides integrated on-line collaborative tools such as Wikis, discussion boards, and calendars for groups developing digital learning assets. Free!
• Schoolforge is an advocacy group for organizations developing tools in the service of the creation of primary and secondary educational resources.
• EduForge is a sourceforge, a repository of Open Source code and applications, for educational software.

Have a related tool you'd like to share?

Please send us a note at and tell us about your work!

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0205625. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.