We built a website from scratch (www.edufy.org) that does everything we need (no ads). It looks like we addressed the following hopes from this post:
-ratings by the community, best activities rise to the top of search
-modular/flexible so they can be added to existing lessons, instead of replacing them or pulling out the parts that are needed.
-see the activity/overview in list view without the need to open it
-insert images into the activity
-comments on activities, which could include alternatives/ suggestions are seen at the top)
-creative commons licensing
-I originally wanted the wiki model, but we’re starting off with giving the option to duplicate activity and add to it, or distill multiple similar activities into one super-activity. The search is designed to be more sensitive to the latest versions.

Here’s some other functions we have that are really useful:
-search by/filter on relevant educational criteria (grade, stage of the lesson (engage, explore, extension, etc) learning style, ability level, duration, etc)
-click to hide any parts of the learning activity that you don’t want

Functions that are top on our list to add:
1-Print student or teacher versions
2-from the activity, have a menu of attachments that can be downloaded
3-My Favorites tabs
4-comments are also rated, so the most useful, highest rated alternates/ suggestions are seen at the top

Future functions:
-videos as previews, shared by people who have tried it
-samples of student work, to know what to expect
-if you like an author’s work, see what else they’ve worked on
-question banks that can be shared and uploaded into LMS like Blackboard, Moodle, etc.

Since introducing this at the Baltimore NSTA conference on Nov 11th, 130+ teachers joined in. There is no “real” line between Math and Chemistry and History, so we don’t offer a “subject” filter. I teach Earth Science and Physics, so we focused on science to start. There isn’t much Math there now. However, if 100,000 teachers start sharing best ideas… it shouldn’t take long before there’s something for everyone on every topic, right?

Best wishes,
Phil

Alex: Is the problem solved or are we still looking?

No to the first. Definitely, yes, to the second. It’s on my mind, like, 24/7.

Alex: I still come down on the side of having more of the lesson available rather than less.

You could very well be right. I’ll say this, though, that while there are many competitors in the “everything but the kitchen sink” category (including BetterLesson, the best-funded of the bunch) there are none that trade on inspiration. Just a bunch of scattered blogs like this one. All that’s to say, I’d like to see someone give the latter a try since the former has been tried so much and been found (by me, if no one else) to be pretty well wanting.

I like the mediawiki idea, enough that I might try throwing it up on teacherforge.net just to see how it feels. I fear it’d be too free-form and complicated for 90% of math teachers though. I think we need a more guided interface to keep content addition fast and simple. It also doesn’t seem to have a built-in reputation system, but it looks like add-ons are available.

Re-reading the conversation from last year, I still come down on the side of having more of the lesson available rather than less. In particular I believe creating/choosing excellent example/practice problems is much harder than most people think. The selection of a good sequence of problems can be just as important than a great hook. I definitely want hooks, but I want more than that too.

What do people think? Is the problem solved or are we still looking?

It does revision control, maked-up text, multimedia, number tables (sorting by all sorts of funky columns), […]. Forking off lesson versions—maybe that can be done by disambiguation-like pages.

Oh, and people are already comfortable navigating it, and some are already comfortable editing it; others will learn a new skill with fringe benefit applications ;-)

How does that sound?

I do, however, think that the many new teachers might need the help of something with a little more substance than a great graphic.