When dealing with reusable content, our goal here is to have the best of both worlds.
On one hand, we want something like a good old-fashioned textbook.
Everything is already there at the start of the term, topics are presented in the most logical order, formative assignments are placed at the end of each chapter, and all we have to do is follow the book and focus on our ‘delivery’.
On the other hand we need the flexibility to make necessary adjustments throughout the year, occasionally changing the order in which some topics are presented, removing them altogether if we are short of time, perhaps replacing them with other content which we feel is more relevant to a certain group of students.
Now imagine if a physical textbook came already organised inside a ring binder with plastic pockets and dividers rather than in the traditional binding of a book.
Instead of having to ask students to skip chapter two of one book and replace it with the first half of chapter seven from another, we could rearrange the content for them and present it exactly how we want it.
This is exactly what we can do in Beebop, except that it takes less time and any changes we make are automatically reflected in the Table of Contents.
The default scenario is that the course content is already there and all we have to do is to set deadlines for the submission of Assignments, but the option is there if we need it; for each Class we teach (remember, ‘Class’ = student group) we can add and remove content, or simply change the order in which it is presented.
This is where the difference between reusable and single-use content comes into play.
Let’s say that we have an article from a magazine in PDF format and we want to share it with our students.
Should we create a new Page to act as a container for this PDF, and then add this page to our Course Content? Or should we add the PDF directly to the Course Content?
Or should we add the PDF inside a post to publish on our Class Channel?