Sakai upgraded to version 2.7! Take a peek…

If you have been using Sakai for a while—or even if you are brand new—there are several goodies in this version to discover.  We’ll highlight a few below to get you started and will continue to spotlight new features over the coming weeks.

NEW! Message Center Notifications

When you log into Sakai, you land in “MyWorkspace.” You will now see “Message Center Notifications.” At a glance, you can view and access all of your new, unread messages–in all of your sites. Just click on the envelope to jump directly to the new, unread info! (Click all images to enlarge.)

NEW! Profile2 Tool

This is fun! Go to your MyWorkspace tab and click on Profile. If you hover over the right-side of a topic, you’ll see an edit button display. This causes a form to appear that you can fill out. There is Twitter integration if you choose and other Privacy settings for you to control how others in Sakai will see your profile. Happy explorations!

NEW! Blogs

Want to use blogging in your classes but not sure how to begin? It’s easy to use the Blogs tool in Sakai. The default settings are set to make the blogs publicly available (each person’s blog has its own RSS feed). However, if you want to use blogs as private journals or just make accessible to class members, you can modify the permissions so only those people who should see the content and comment are able to do so! A few classes have used blogging successfully and we hope to have video interviews posted soon.

Reminder: With any upgrade, we expect some oddities to emerge. Please report any strange behavior quickly so we can resolve issues for you, your students, colleagues and friends. Thank you in advance for your help!