Forum .LRN Q&A: dotLRN for real-time distance learning?

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1: dotLRN for real-time distance learning?
Posted by Reuven Lerner on 02/04/03 11:00 PM
I'm pretty familiar with OpenACS, and do a fair amount of work with nonprofits and educational institutions.  Over the last few months, a number of them have asked me about support for distance learning within OpenACS.

It's clear to me that .LRN is a great infrastructure and set of applications for the support of a real-life university course.  But from what I can tell, there is little or nothing to support complete distance learning, including real-time remote lectures, chat, and the like.

So while www.dotlrn.org talks about .LRN as a total eLearning platform, it sounds like .LRN is more of a support structure for and companion to real-world classes.

Am I wrong?  Are there plans to change this?  How much work would be needed to turn .LRN into a primary educational system, rather than a set of supplemental tools?

I apologize for what might be massive ignorance on my part, but I'm getting enough questions from clients (including some who might be willing to fund some work on .LRN) that I would like to hear what people have to say.

Reuven

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2: Re: dotLRN for real-time distance learning? (response to 1)
Posted by Alfred Essa on 02/05/03 06:30 AM
Reuven, Good questions. We are currently working on a roadmap for .LRN v2 and its feature set. We hope to have a draft ready in a couple of weeks.

Support for "distance learning" can mean many things. I take it though that you are primarily concerned with support for "synchronous" tools such as chat, shared white board, etc. I think we are all in agreement that synchronous tools are an important component of eLearning. OACS' strength is that it provides the foundation and infrastructure for adding other elements. For example, we would certainly like to see Jabber incorporated as part of OACS/.LRN and would encourage it's incorporation.

Another major area of support for distance learning is an LMS component. This would not be a single tool but a whole set of functionality such as assessment, curriculum, and portfolio. We were hoping that Berklee would contribute this to OACS but they have declined to make their code available to the community. Thus, we will have to find other means.

The short answer is that we will be moving in the direction you propose. We will be able to do so because OACS provides a solid foundation.

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3: Re: dotLRN for real-time distance learning? (response to 1)
Posted by Alfred Essa on 02/05/03 06:32 AM
Reuven, Good questions. We are currently working on a roadmap for .LRN v2 and its feature set. We hope to have a draft ready in a couple of weeks.

Support for "distance learning" can mean many things. I take it though that you are primarily concerned with support for "synchronous" tools such as chat, shared white board, etc. I think we are all in agreement that synchronous tools are an important component of eLearning. OACS' strength is that it provides the foundation and infrastructure for adding other elements. For example, we would certainly like to see Jabber incorporated as part of OACS/.LRN and would encourage it's incorporation.

Another major area of support for distance learning is an LMS component. This would not be a single tool but a whole set of functionality such as assessment, curriculum, and portfolio. We were hoping that Berklee would contribute this to OACS but they have declined to make their code available to the community. Thus, we will have to find other means.

The short answer is that we will be moving in the direction you propose. We will be able to do so because OACS provides a solid foundation.

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4: Re: dotLRN for real-time distance learning? (response to 1)
Posted by Reuven Lerner on 02/05/03 07:38 AM
Al, thanks for responding.

I'm not only interested in synchronous solutions; it's clear that the asynchronous stuff in .LRN is both impressive and useful.  But my clients who have been asking me about eLearning solutions generally expect to have such synchronous options.

I'll be curious to see the roadmap; I wouldn't be surprised if it'll be cheaper for my clients to hire me (or someone else) to add to .LRN's functionality based on that roadmap than to buy a proprietary system.  At the same time, your posting gives me a realistic picture of what exists now, and where things are going.

I look forward to seeing what emerges!

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5: Re: dotLRN for real-time distance learning? (response to 4)
Posted by Alfred Essa on 04/08/03 02:08 PM
Reuven, We will be talking about the roadmap for .LRN this week in Copenhagen. I will be sure to raise the status of synchronous options and will let you know what transpires. Al