JEvents

 

Efforts Prior to 1997: WebLearningTools Research originally was a "garage lab" operation which I operated part-time on my (the PI's) extra income from contract computer programming and instructional design work.  There were a few interesting work-products suitable for improving distance learning which I created from 1990-1997, one of which was "stolen" by Adobe, Inc.  I said too much in the presence of an unidentified Adobe scout at a NextWorld conference in San Francisco.  Please enjoy their costly "Adobe Distiller Server" product which still falls far short of the vision I had in 1994 and begun to implement for a similar open source product, now a part of what I call the EOE Project.

Full-Time Efforts, 1997 to 2009: In 1997 I received a grant from the U.S. Dept. of Education to develop ideas I had proposed for Internet (web) server software technologies that would create "virtual schools", "virtual classrooms", and an "educational operating environment" (EOE).  The "virtual schools" and "virtual classroom" projects have been implemented and sold by others in what I call crude "generation one" Web 1.x and Web 2.0-beta versions at this writing.  But in this investigators opinion, the feature sets of these products are rudimentary at best and tedious to use and maintain for instructors and instructional content authors.  The instruction is just as fixed and inflexible -- and in some ways more difficult to change -- as is instruction or training made with the use of an ordinary textbook, hardcopy exercises and tests.

Please read my essays published elsewhere on this web site to explore my criticisms of the commercial and open source products available to-date in these areas.  See also the off-site web-links that I and others add to this site to elaborate on these technologies and their problematic technical, ordinary maintenance, and pedigogical issues.

 

 

Meta Project Goals: Since I first saw a painfully simplistic working example of Psychologist B.F. Skinner's "Programmed Instruction" displayed on a terminal connected to an IBM 360-40 mainframe in 1964, I have wanted to contribute to much more educationally useful forms of distance learning.  As I learned more about "artificial intelligence" (AI) in computer science classes in the 1980s, I also became acquainted with leading "thought leaders" in the Silicon Valley of the time, such as Dr. John Seely Brown and others, who predicted the advent of what we now call "Intelligent Tutoring Systems".  I have tracked the progress of the relevant software technologies from then to date and improved my technical knowledge and skills in those areas as well.

Therefore, the projects I propose on this web-site will demonstrate practical designs, prototypes, and ways to achieve "generations 2 & 3+" of Web 2.x and Web 3.x (semantics-aware systems) of combinations of emerging and to-be-developed advanced open source distance learning and intelligent tutoring system software tools.  For the non-technical reader, "we" (the world of Internet users) are at the Web 2.0 stage as of the end of 2009.  In this expert's opinion, VERY much needs to be improved in what is available commercially and as free open source for distance learning that carries the "web 2.0" label.  And projects published in summary and in-detail on this web site will demonstrate and explain those improvements for non-technical educators, administrators, and for computer technical people as well.

Interestingly, the EOE I proposed at the end of my formal Dept. of Education work period in 1998 has not been implemented in the public domain for 12+ years.  In short: The EOE is intended to integrate disparate (heterogeneous, otherwise not "friendly" or not-inter-operating) commercial and free open-source server systems of similar function.  Please see my essay-style, white-papers and public design overviews of the EOE design available elsewhere on this web-site.

The research I performed with Dept. of Education funding, 1997-1998, led to too many good ideas about how this field of distance learning technologies and what was then called "computer assisted learning" might evolve.  With post-grant financial help from my "mentor", VP of ana-systems, Inc., Mr. Stan Osborne, I further developed these ideas 3/4 to full-time into projects for which I could then prepare more concrete discrete proposals for grants.  Mr. Osborne is a long time computer contract programmer and systems administrator and a lecturer in computer security and computer systems administration at San Francisco State University.

 

A few of the "better developed" proposed projects alluded to above will soon appear on this web-site as encouragement for "angel funding" from site visitors who have sufficient funds to contribute to the intended collaborative design and development efforts.

The Lab Equipment and software always needs updating and upgrading.  See the "Needed In-Kind Donations" article on this site for details.  The Lab Equipment currently consists of a 10/100 Mbps LAN for desktops and servers, WiFi (b/g) wireless networking for laptops, and a high-speed DSL connection to the Internet. Networked computers in the lab number 5 to 10 depending on the number put in service for "serving" purposes. There are currently 3 dedicated server computers, each a Pentium 4 with high-capacity SATA hard-disk storage. Among other things with such a LAN "we" can experiment with load balancing locally before deployment of server software to one or more public "test" or "live" (production) sites.

Some test goals: We want to be able to experiment with various configurations of "thin" (stupid, dumb, slow, but rugged and durable) and "thick" or "robust" (smart & fast, but expensive) client computers in "test classroom" scenarios. We are materially able to do some of those tests now, if and when they become a priority. For client computers currently there are 5-6 laptops available of various ages. Ages range from 5 years old Pentium 4s to an Apple G4 notebook, a Pentium 3, to 2 12 years old Pentium 2s. All of these can be used as simulated thin-clients or as thick/robust/smart client workstations and can be put to use in a variety of test-classroom and test student-course-materials presentation and learning interactivity scenarios.

The older laptops and a few older Pentium 3 desktops are used for "regression testing" of the same tests we would perform with newer, more recent hardware and software, but using slower machines, perhaps with no file storage capabilities on the laptops, and perhaps running older operating systems.

Some Intended Publications: We hope to publish best-case configurations and performance reports about the uses of older equipment which in turn can use "well" newer or newest educational software, course-ware, and distance learning techniques and web-sites. We hope to publish these reports in several languages such that they will encourage and guide certain "poorer schools", school districts in developed and developing countries to adopt state-of-the-art distance learning services and materials in their curricula if and when all they can get is the "older computer equipment" and networking hardware.