Forum .LRN Q&A: New .LRN Web Site

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1: New .LRN Web Site
Posted by Alfred Essa on 03/29/04 03:46 PM
We plan to launch the new .LRN web site by the end of the week. Can you please look at the "home page" and send me comments on the content? The other sections are being worked on as we speak.

Carl B. and Dave K. are working feverishly on the back end side. Please note that the correct pages are on port 8000, not port 80.

http://ssmhpblade2.mit.edu:8000/

Thanks in advance.

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2: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 1)
Posted by Lars Pind on 03/29/04 03:56 PM
Looks very good. Thanks for doing this.

I'd say kill the "News" part, use weblogger instead (but you can call it "News"), and syndicate that on the front page.

You don't need both, and blog is the 'modern' way of doing this.

/Lars

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3: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 1)
Posted by Nima Mazloumi on 03/29/04 04:41 PM
Great site. Just a thought on the design...Please make sure that you don't breach the copyright of http://www.alistapart.com/articles/taminglists/ for the list on the left side.
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4: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 3)
Posted by Jeff Davis on 03/29/04 04:51 PM
ala says:
Free source
A List Apart gives away CSS styles, JavaScript, PHP and Perl scripts, XHTML markup techniques, and other bits of Source Code for the use of its readers. You may freely copy, paste, and modify any of this code for use on your own web projects large or small, commercial or non-commercial. You need not ask permission to do so. You need not credit ALA or its authors. It is our gift to you.
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5: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 1)
Posted by Oliver Emmler on 03/29/04 09:44 PM
I like it, it's great.
I felt familiar immediately with the site.
Gratulation
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6: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 1)
Posted by xx xx on 03/29/04 11:12 PM
Congratulations, it is very pleasant. The clean clear content is wonderful. I appreciate the focus on the "complete learning environment". The colors are nice, especially the orange in contrast with the blue. Also, don't lose the pictures of people on the homepage, which make the appearance friendly and personal.

Some suggestions:

  • The blue color of the top bar is rather strong, I would experiment to make it more inviting.
  • I agree, the weblog could replace the news.
  • The pages suffer from a "flash of unstyled content" due to @import. Try to add a LINK or STYLE element.
  • I guess there is no need for the double (triple) "home" on the homepage and probably "Partners&Users" could lose "product" from the navbar.
  • I would prefer adding the word "freeware" to the text. Many people google for "freeware". For example call .LRN "open source freeware".
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7: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 1)
Posted by xx xx on 03/29/04 11:16 PM
... not STYLE but SCRIPT element ...
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8: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 1)
Posted by kenneth wyrick on 03/29/04 11:43 PM
It's my opinion that the color scheme clashes with the openacs website colors...the existing websites pallet is more earthy and reflects a more distinct persona.....plus there's something very artsy and nice about lower case lettering, especially on logos.

thanks!

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9: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 1)
Posted by Bruce Spear on 03/30/04 11:58 AM
Good work!

What are the plans for content, and how might I/we contribute?

I'm thinking: if this is going to be the front door to institutions new to .LRN, isn't this where we assemble our marketing/presentation materials?  If so, I'd like to see an explanation of what makes .LRN .LRN. so I might refer to it every time I am asked for more information about it. I'm sure others have thought this question through already, so, let's hear it so we might start contributing.

For instance, I've finally gotten that video of Carl beaming into Berlin from Cambridge last October.  It has got to be one of the most compelling presentations around.  If others think it might be useful, I'd like to cut it up into downloadable pieces and make that available.

On that note, as a number of us have been making vision statements, and as these are about an open source community finding its way, and as this manner of collective work is central to .LRN's design and user/marketing advantage -- how might we find a way to get some of this onto this site?

Finally, as one of the resident photographers, I'd suggest we replace the photos of individual instructors -- which I think relevant to instructor-oriented lms systems -- with those showing group or community interaction.  I made a couple of photos showing group discussion in Copenhagen over the weekend, and which I'll put on line today.  I'm wondering if others have some images, and while we are at it, maybe forming an ad hoc image committee to collect such things.

I hope these comments may prove helpful!

Bruce

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10: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 1)
Posted by Bruce Spear on 03/30/04 04:44 PM
Here's the link to my Bug Bash photos.

http://160.45.16.100:5000/dotlrn-gardens/photo-album/

I hasten to add that I would not pretend to have made the best photos for our purposes.  My purpose here is to suggest the kinds of imagery that might better illustrate .LRN's strong communication and community orientation.

I would also suggest that our .LRN site illustrate and highlight the strength of our developer community, particularly as this developer community is one of our application's most valuable and marketable assets.  Hence, I have been seeking to make pictures that show us at work building software, friendships, and community.

All the best,

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11: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 1)
Posted by Alfred Essa on 04/06/04 09:07 PM
It's up: http://www.dotlrn.org. We will continue to make changes leading up to the Heidelberg conference. I want to thank Carl B. and Dave K. for all the continuing hard work. And Janine S. and Mark R. for installing the server.
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12: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 10)
Posted by Alfred Essa on 04/06/04 09:08 PM
Bruce, We would like to incorporate your pictures, but I can't seem to access your server. It's too slow?
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13: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 1)
Posted by Nima Mazloumi on 04/07/04 11:34 AM
Looks great but the page is not displayed correctly under IE 6.0. The text in the center overlaps with that of the navigation on the left.
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14: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 1)
Posted by Bruce Spear on 04/07/04 01:33 PM
I've sent Al the photos: I got firewalled out of my old ports and will get a new virtual server system set up soon and will post the new links here asap.

Bruce

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15: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 13)
Posted by Alfred Essa on 04/07/04 06:51 PM
Bear with us. A number of people are working simultaneously on the web site and we need to achieve some standardization.
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16: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 1)
Posted by Jarkko Laine on 04/07/04 09:50 PM
Is there a reason for the "Weblog" still being on the site? I see that you incorporated Lars' idea to make the news a blogger instance, but the other "Weblog" is still cluttering the navbar.

Otherwise the site looks really great. Congrats!

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17: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 4)
Posted by Carl Robert Blesius on 04/08/04 03:46 AM
(closing open blockquotes from post above)

It is really cool to have dotlrn running on .LRN 😊

Thanks for the feedback, have been fixing one thing at a time ( I think David and I fixed the IE 6.0 problem a little while ago) and preparing for the .LRN meeting coming up in Heidelberg.

The reason there is a weblog link "cluttering" the navbar is because I want to have a .LRN group weblog running on the site. It will not be empty for long. The "news" weblog will have a different audience than the ".LRN community weblog" (which is why we need two - unless someone wants to hack together per-category feeds 😉 )

Constructive input on what kind of stuff we should be talking about in that weblog (or draft posts) are welcome.

We also have the /dotlrn part of the site we have to carefully think about (I want to avoid spreading the community out in subgroups).

Right now the focus is to make sure the site hums, starting "the big marketing push", and get the consortium info together and posted so we can get feedback before the Heidelberg meeting.

It is really cool to start see thing roll (we have all been pushing for a long time)!

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18: Re: New .LRN Web Site (response to 1)
Posted by Andrew Grumet on 04/08/04 03:54 AM
I think David and I fixed the IE 6.0 problem a little while ago
Looks good!