Open-Source in Education News

We've been a little thin on the ground this month with two of our developers attending the Open Source for Education in Europe conference in Heerlen. Nonetheless we've still made reasonable progress :

• a new Flash Video idevice that makes it easy for authors to include video snippets in their eXe packages;
• the ability to include a hide/show feedback button in the iDevice editor;
• our first Mac OS build for eXe - it's still experimental, so expect a few teething problems;
• new localisations for Dutch and Icelandic; and
• an Ubuntu (linux for human beings) build for eXe
;
• the ability to register for future releases of eXe on eXeLearning.org from the help menu in the package

We welcome feedback from the community, so if you have a few minutes please complete the survey form. We need your feedback and ideas to improve on the technology.

...web content without the need to become proficient in HTML or XML markup...

For folk who are partial to using Ubuntu, you can try our Ubuntu build. You will need to change your sources list by adding: "deb ftp://ftp.eduforge.org/pub/exe/ubuntu current main" and then executing the "apt-get update" and "apt-get install python2.4-exe" from the terminal window.

Feel free to post your comments and ideas on the Eduforge forums for the eXe project.

This release has seen the team overcome some significant technical difficulties. Of note in this release are the removal of the Firefox menu bar, the replacement of FCK editor with TinyMCE which includes increased WYSIWYG functionality, the addition of an experimental Cloze iDevice as well as the External Web Site iDevice and an experimental SCORM Quiz iDevice, the ability to change languages has been added (English, German, Chinese, Greek, Spanish are currently available, and the inclusion of a new style. Along with a range of bug fixes this is the strongest release we've had yet and brings some renewed vigour to the project. Expect significant improvements and additions in the following months.

Download eXe @ : http://exelearning.org/

Two of the developers of eXe, Brent Simpson and David Moore, will be attending the Open Source for Education in Europe 2005 and presenting a workshop entitled, "Using eXe for creating eLearning content". Please drop by if you're interested in learning more about the project.

If you are using eXe let us know where you are by visiting our Frappr map: http://www.frappr.com/exe

Eduforge was founded in early 2004 as part of the New Zealand Open Source Virtual Learning Environment (NZOSVLE) project (https://eduforge.org/projects/nzvle/). The NZOSVLE is a major collaborative education project funded by the New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission, an arm of the NZ Government. The project’s goals are to adopt and contribute to open source solutions for education. The consortium is composed of polytechnics, universities, and a private training organisations. Part of the vision for Eduforge is to create an environment that is robust enough to support large scale collaborative software development, but friendly enough to be used by non-programmers who want to collaborate on a range of projects. Projects may include learning materials design, application testing, and research as well as contributing documentation, tutorials, and help files to software development projects. In addition to reducing the economic and organisational barriers associated with large scale distributed collaboration, Eduforge is envisioned to reduce the technology usability barrier often confronted by non-ICT professionals. We've recently added Planet Eduforge, a blog aggregator at http://planet.eduforge.org, and integrated a fully featured blogging tool. Eduforge is developed using FOSS - GForge, Serendipity, and PHPWiki. While this started with somewhat of a NZ flavour due to the projects on it, the intent has always been a global shared resource. Recently we shifted the hosting to the US to improve latency for many of the interantional users. We would very much welcome participation - either in using the resources or in helping us develop the reources available on Eduforge. Or simply feedback, we're committed to continuous improvements. regards Richard Wyles

Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Sunday July 17, @09:32AM
from the and-more-probably-don't-realize-they-do dept.
cfelde writes " 56.2% of software developers use open source components by ZDNet's ZDNet -- Evans Data has found a rising trend toward including open source modules in software development world. While 38.1% said they used OSS modules in their applications in Spring of 2001, in the most recent survey, 56.2% said they had."

Slashdot | 56.2% of Software Developers use Open Source

New features

The 0.6 release has fixed many bugs from 0.5 and includes two new iDevices: the Wikipedia iDevice and the ability to include attachments with the Attachment iDevice. Users can now also align images align left or right using the Image with Text iDevice. eXe content can be exported for the majority of LMSs using the IMS & SCORM exports (for example WebCT, Blackboard, Moodle, ATutor, Illias, Claroline etc.). You can also reference eXe content in a LAMS sequence. Screenshot examples are provided on the developers wiki .

We need your help

Please try eXe out and let us know what you think by using the survey link on the project homepage. As an open source software project, this is an important part of our testing and user requests for new features.

This is a development that should make many educators and open source advocates very happy:

We have just launched BBC OpenSource – the new repository for open source code released by the BBC.

For the BBC, open source software development is an extension of our Public Service remit. Releasing open source software helps our audience get additional value from the work they've funded, and also get tools for free that they couldn't get any other way. It also allows people outside the BBC to extend projects in such a way that may in future be used in the BBC.

We hope there will be opportunities for cross-pollination between backstage.bbc.co.uk and BBC OpenSource.

backstage.bbc.co.uk :: Backstage News :: BBC launches Open Source website

Michael Feldstein quotes an excerpt from Sakai’s press release (note, the link on e-Literate to the press release is now broken, use the one below) regarding a demonstration of the IMS Tool Interoperability (TI) standard:

The demonstration included four LMS systems including BlackBoard, WebCT, Sakai, and Moodle.  The demonstration included three applications: Concept Tutor, Samigo(Sakai), and QuestionMark.  All LMS/Application combinations worked and were demonstrated at the meeting which validates the interoperability of the IMS TI specification.

The demonstration was the culmination of nine months of significant co-design and engineering between all of the participants.

Now that the interoperability demonstration is complete, the standard is expected to be published Fall 2005.  As long as the standard is finalized in time, we expect that this feature will be present in the Sakai 2.1 release in the Fall 2005.

Sakai Press Release

...and goes on to make a point about standards, services, interoperbility and FOSS:

So tit for tat; now Sakai and Moodle can integrate proprietary pieces like QuestionMark as easily as WebCT and Blackboard can integrate FOSS pieces like Samigo. Note that it doesn’t matter whether your LMS is written in, say, PHP (like Moodle) or Java (like Sakai and WebCT). That’s part of the magic of web services.

In the short term, the P.R. mileage that the proprietary vendors get out of announcing integration with a given specialized tool vendor gets drastically reduced if not eliminated. Anything that complies with TI will run on at least two FOSS platforms as well.

In the long run, this is a first step toward the disintegration of the LMS and the creation of the LMOS. Why can’t every single tool in Moodle, Sakai, Blackboard, or WebCT interoperate this way? Why do I have to pick one package for 90% of my functionality and only be able to make choices about the last 10%?

e-Literate: Now, That's What I'm Talkin' 'bout!

A very good point made here: open source gives communities the power to ensure that their language can be used for computing work. Coming from Nova Scotia - where there was more Scots Gaelic spoken than in Scotland last time I checked - and living in Welsh-speaking Gwynedd, I can see how much this means to communities whose first language is declining. Good news!

By itself, the release of OpenOffice.org for Scots Gaelic is a small event within the communities of free and open source software (FOSS). It is only one of the more than 50 localizations available for OpenOffice.org 1.x. However, the release shows a potential for FOSS that is often overlooked, particularly by those for whom English is their native language. Specifically, FOSS has the potential to help resuscitate a declining language and thereby aid in revitalizing a disintegrating culture.

NewsForge | OpenOffice.org, FOSS, and the preservation of Gaelic

SourceLabs is offering a very interesting service - Swik - The free and open database of Open Source projects.

Swik is a project to create a useful free-content directory for open source software. Swik was inspired by the wiki concept used by projects like Wikipedia and WikiWikiWeb. Anyone can edit Swik project pages, including you.

About Swik

According to the swik about page, "Swik project pages are different from the typical wiki pages you may have seen before. Each project page has a bunch of topics: anyone can add or edit topics, or add or edit entries in topics". Swik also has the two key buzz features whcih may make it an essential resource: social-bookmark-like tagging and powerful exposure of RSS Feeds

This will have great impact on educational content and software development. Open Source is definitely mainstreaming :o).

Macromedia's choice of Eclipse speaks volumes about the impact of open source on commercial software development -- and about Macromedia's commitment to making Flash into an essential platform for next-generation internet applications.

O'Reilly Radar > NextGen Macromedia Flash Tool "Zorn" to Run on Eclipse

MACROMEDIA JOINS ECLIPSE FOUNDATION

New tool for developing rich Internet applications on the Macromedia Flash Platform to be based on industry-leading Eclipse IDE

San Francisco, CA - June 6, 2005 - Macromedia, Inc. (Nasdaq: MACR) today announced plans to join the Eclipse Foundation, a not-for-profit industry organization committed to developing and promoting the open-source Eclipse universal development platform. Macromedia plans to deliver a next-generation rich Internet application (RIA) development tool based on Eclipse. RIAs combine the rich user interface of desktop software with the web's reach and ease of use. Code-named Zorn, the new product will enable development teams to easily build and deploy applications that deliver more effective, memorable, and usable experiences by leveraging the powerful capabilities of the Macromedia Flash Platform (announced today, see separate release). The Flash Platform provides the solutions that make great digital experiences possible.

Macromedia - Press Room : Macromedia Joins Eclipse Foundation

Sakai 2.0.0 Release Announcement (via EdTechPost)

A lot of folks have been waiting for this, and here it is - the Sakai project have release version 2.0, which amongst other things includes a Gradebook feature in addition to updates to the Samigo assessment tool. I am undertaking a review of Sakai 2.0 for Edutools right now that we will hopefully have up in a few weeks, and so should have a much better idea by then of what is actually all there. - SWL

EdTechPost: Sakai 2.0.0 Release Available

...From the announcement at Sakai site, Wednesday, 15 June 2005:

The Sakai 2.0.0 release is now available. This release includes a Gradebook in addition to an updated version of the Tests and Quizzes tool (Samigo). The existing Sakai tools have been internationalized, allowing translation of Sakai 2.0 into multiple languages. Most of the existing tools now conform to Sakai Style Guide. Sakai 2.0 includes support for web-services to allow the development of tools on languages other than Java.

There are many improvements in the configuration, installation, efficiency and performance in the 2.0 release. The Sakai Kernel has been rewritten for this release, improving configurability and ease of development for Sakai.

The release is provided in demo, source, and binary distributions. The release can be downloaded from the 2.0.0 Release pages.

The sixth edition of the Libre Software Meeting (LSM) will take place from July, 5th to July, 9th in Dijon, in the East of France. This year, the university of Bourgogne is hosting the event in the Miranda building of its
science faculty.
LSM is the largest meeting totally dedicated to free software in the world. Over 1000 people from more than 50 countries on 5 continentscame to Metz and Bordeaux for the previous editions, in 2003 and 2004.
The LSM combines two complementary events :

• a meeting of software developers and designers coming to discuss of their projects in a friendly environment ;

• a meeting for a broader audience that aims at addressing some questions surrounding free software.

The organisation of technical conferences is an opportunity for developers to exchange information about their projects, while the organisation of conferences for a broader audience is an opportunity for end-users to meet
the software developers.

For more information see http://2005.rencontresmondiales.org/sections

I've just noted in my own weblog, c-Learning, that Userland Frontier is now Open Source.

We've moved to Zope, Frontier has moved to open-source. Will we ever meet again? Will anybody care enough to really push at the core of Frontier to make it into a modern framework for object-oriented application/service development? I'll tell you one thing: I've subscribed to Scripting News again :o)

c-Learning - noted: Frontier as Open Source

I am a fan of Dave Winer. I always have been, and I do not care who was in the right in the little skirmish that led to atom, I always will be. It was his imagination, practicality and devotion to simplicity that gave us RSS, web-logging, XML-RPC, remote-posting APIs, etc etc --- all the best service-oriented, distributed, content-free-ing aspects of the web we live in.

The beginning of a new era?

OK, "new era" may be a bit over the top, but Frontier contains an incredible combination of features, thanks in part to a vibrant community of active contributors for over a decade. UserLand will carry on with their "website and weblog publishing tools". Will a new community form around Frontier's general-purpose scripting environment? (It's starting.) Will the old fogey's come back? (Some have!) Will a new generation discover the power of an integrated, customizable development and runtime environment with persistent storage and ubiquitous outlining? Kudos to Dave Winer and UserLand for the decision.

Frontier as Open Source

This means progress for people like ourselves (KnowNet) who may be considering some explorations using the Open Service definitions but who want light weight 'bindings' for web-applications.

As an aside... I tried to find a permalink for this article on the IMS site, but was utterly shocked to discover there is none - just the 'past news' URL en bloc. Now, in my opinion trackback, RSS and other permalink-based mini-standards have done much more for education than any number of big, specifically education standards (which are what the IMS site is about). And the REST-ful web has done more than anything to make the web a useful experience for learners (REST is an architectural theory about the web which boils down to a few simple principles such as always making sure that URLs make sense and that all content can be reached from a sensible URL). I am tempted to surmise that the IMS site's prominent ignorance of these small, loose but very powerful standards is quite telling :o)

The Open Knowledge Initiative Delivers XOSID Specification
(Cambridge, MA) - 2 June 2005, The Open Knowledge Initiative (O.K.I.(tm)) announced today the release of its XOSID representations of the Open Service Interface Definitions (OSIDs). XOSIDs provide a language neutral XML representation of the OSIDs, which until now were only available as Java APIs.

IMS Global Learning Consortium: Past News

See also OSID page at IMS.

NB - I have just discovered a permalink at the MIT OKI site for this news: Open Knowledge Initiative Delivers XOSID Specification - if only the IMS site had the same respect for simple web standards :o).

see Moodle and LAMS announce integration plan :: moodle.org for more Martin Dougiamas' original moodle.org post. This seems to me an example of an open source for education standards issue bearing fruit :o)

Moodle, the world's leading open source Course Management System, and LAMS, the world's leading Learning Design system, today announced plans for integration. This means thousands of existing Moodle sites will be able to easily incorporate the revolutionary "digital lesson planning" approach provided by LAMS. The integration will be freely available by the end of July.

Moodle and LAMS announce integration plan :: ScotFEICT :: Online Learning Centre of Excellence for Scottish Further Education - and beyond

... and more from the ScotFEICT article:

"This is excellent news for Moodle and LAMS users alike," said Martin Dougiamas, leader of Moodle. "Moodle and LAMS make a great complementary package. Moodle users will be drawn towards the fun and powerful design tools that LAMS provides, and LAMS users will be able to take advantage of Moodle's popular capabilities for managing communities of learners within a dynamic web site."

"We're delighted to announce this integration between Moodle and LAMS," said Professor James Dalziel, leader of LAMS. "It demonstrates the powerful benefits of combining a Course Management System like Moodle with a Learning Design system like LAMS to create a new generation of e-learning technology. The combination of flexible course pages (Moodle) with structured activity sequences (LAMS) can significantly enhance student learning," he said.

The New Zealand Ministry of Education is sponsoring the integration. "We've had strong interest in both Moodle and LAMS in New Zealand, and particularly in bringing the two systems together," said Elizabeth Eppel, Deputy Secretary. "We see great benefits to New Zealand education arising from an integrated Moodle/LAMS approach, so we were keen to support this development," she said.

The Moodle/LAMS integration will achieve "Single-Sign-On" between the systems, meaning only one name and password is needed for each user across the two systems. Teachers will also benefit from easy ways to add LAMS activity sequences to Moodle course pages. In addition, a new "course format" will be developed for Moodle centred on LAMS activities. Looking beyond the current project, Moodle and LAMS plan to explore advanced tool integration. For details, see lamsfoundation.org/integration/moodle

"While LAMS can integrate with a range of popular e-learning systems, we've been very pleased with the enthusiasm and pro-active approach of Martin Dougiamas on behalf of Moodle," said Dalziel.

"This integration will benefit not only school teachers and university lecturers, but also the growing number of vocational and corporate trainers using Moodle and LAMS," Dougiamas said.

Ominous little bit on page 99 of the UK Labour Party election manifesto. Didn't hear anything about it in the election campaign - but then again its not exactly a bedtime read. Presented on their web site in a horrible Flash electronic book format. I have a nasty fear this means the UK government is going to try to revive the long contested EU copyright proposal during their EU presidency. (For quick summary of labour party manifesto ICT policy commitments see Catherine Howell's excellent and niftily named blog "Ida takes tea".

"We will modernise copyright and other forms of protection of intellectual property rights so that they are appropriate for the digital age.We will use our presidency of the EU to look at how to ensure content creators can protect their innovations in a digital age. Piracy is a growing threat and we will work with industry to protect against it.

Gates heads back to school in open source spat - silicon.com:

Gloves are off for FLOSS playground challenge...

Microsoft is ready to fight competitors entering the IT education market, it said on Monday, after a leaked government report highlighted the benefits of open source software for schools.

In an email to ZDNet UK, the software company said that competition was welcome but that it offered more supported applications than rival open source providers.

Stephen Uden, group manager of education relations for Microsoft, wrote: "Competition in the software market is good for customers because it ensures that they get a good deal as it drives choice and innovation.

"There are some 5,000 third party applications available to run on Microsoft Windows operating system but only a handful of applications supported by the open source community. We offer free support and training materials to help teachers and students make the most of their technology."

Teaching Ideas & Resources - TES - The Times Educational Supplement 2:

The UK Times Educational Supplement (TES) ran this as their lead story this week. TES is the leading educational weekly publication in the UK. This story is going to run for some time to come. I always thought OSS would take off but never imagined we would see the venerable TES printing something like "Find out how much open source software could save your school in this week's TES".

It is clear OSS has mainstreamed in education. Now all we have to do is improve the software and get the pedagogy right!

From the UNFOLD team:

At the recent UNFOLD CoP meeting in Barcelona the workshop by Gilbert
Paquetteand Michel Leonard of the MOT+ Editor created a great deal of
interest. It enableslearning designers to use a graphical interface to
define Units of Learning compliant with Level A IMS LD.

Those of you who missed the meeting can now download a
fully functioning version of MOT+ from the UNFOLD site, together with user
documentation. MOT+ is available in French and English at:
https://www.unfoldproject.net:8082/UNFOLD/general_resources_folder/tools/mot

Open Source Makes School Breakthrough
By eGov monitor Newsdesk Published Monday, 25 April, 2005 - 13:33

Tend not to post these to this blog - normally put then on the SIG Open Source Software site - but I think this is significant.

"Forthcoming government report to pave way for greater OSS use in UK schools

Becta, the Government's lead agency for ICT in education, is set to release a new report which will say that schools could save significant sums by switching to open source software, eGov monitor can report.

The landmark report will show that OSS can be implemented successfully in schools and present documented examples of cost savings from its use.

Becta's report, based on a study of 15 schools, will state that open source office products have been demonstrated to offer schools a cost-effective alternative to proprietary software.

Among the key findings will be that primary and secondary schools using OSS substantially reduced the total cost of ownership per PC. Support costs - typically accounting for more than half a PC's total cost - showed
the biggest reduction.