Today, we kicked off development on Wiki Ed’s first major technology project: the Assignment Design Wizard. This tool, which will be part of wikiedu.org, will provide a way for instructors to design and customize their own Wikipedia classroom assignments, while learning about the best practices we’ve identified over the years. Our goal for the wizard is to give instructors the flexibility they need to adapt our sample syllabus and other assignments to their specific timelines, subject matter, and learning objectives — without dealing with wiki markup or rigid boilerplate text.
This project generated a lot of excitement from developers, as did our broader vision of bringing together the worlds of academia and Wikipedia. As Wiki Ed’s Product Manager, Digital Services, I was very happy with the strong set of proposals from development companies small and large. But ultimately, one stood out: WINTR. With a history of developing beautiful interactive web experiences for major brands, a strong desire to do work that matters, and a development philosophy that puts user experience at the center, WINTR has everything we were hoping to find in a technical partner. WINTR is based in Seattle, Washington, giving me the opportunity to collaborate with them in person during the Assignment Design Wizard project.
If you’re interested in helping to test out this course design tool as it develops, get in touch!