H2O

H2O is a suite of tools for teaching online. The major components are:

• The question tool: A backchannel application for use during a class. It has much broader utility as an asynchronous discussion system and conference backchannel application.
• The rotisserie: A tool to manage discussion around a particular topic in a way that ensures no one user dominates.
• The playlist: A tool to aggregate content from within an h2o instance and (ideally, in a delicious like fashion) from around the web.
• Collages: A tool that allows arbitrary text to be annotated with tagged layers. This is most useful to create "social casebooks" used in the teaching of specific legal concepts, but has broader application for the annotation and discussion of complex topics.

Most items can be forked and copied in a rudimentary github fashion, and retain their lineage in an effort to build out a social, collaborative experience. The source code will be released very soon, most likely under an AGPL license.

The alpha-level h2o system is in use here ( link to http://h2odev.law.harvard.edu/ ).

Some possible directions include:

• Building out the playlist system to create a richer UI,
• Building out a better playlisting UI for adding arbitrary items from around the web - youtube, vimeo, flickr images, wikipedia pages, arbitrary HTML pages, etc.
• Create a delicious-like bookmarklet for adding and categorizing an item in a playlist
• Work to improve javascript / ajax performance in the collage system.
• Extract the question tool to function as a standalone application.
• Improve the API to allow for the federation of separate H2O installations.
• Improve the test suite.