This WebLearningTools Research (a.k.a. WLTRes) web site continues to function normally as it has since late November 2011, if sadly with decreased public interest since that time. As of August 29, 2012 (12.08.29) the site now has sufficient "new account registration" and log in security that it can accept educators, graduate students, and the members of the general public that are interested in distance learning as users of this site and any more private information contained on this site. The current Joomla! (tm) version of the site is v1.5.26, and may change soon to v1.6.x, then v1.7.x and then to the latest version of v2.5.x. It takes some time for extension developers for each of these versions "past" v1.5.x to improve their extension code accordingly. Joomla! extension and web site "core Joomla!" upgrading tools introduced in November 2011 have continued to make baseline WLTRes site administration and backups much more easy to do, giving the site's content and features greater "digital integrity."
The WebLearningProductions (a.k.a. WLProd) web site was in "early development" (as an empty no-content Joomla! web site) since 2009. However I did not develop it for many months first in deference to my (JGW's) work to develop this WLTRes site. With the unexpected "radical-right-wing" turn in the U.S. General Election of 2010, I then spent very much of my site development time not developing WLTRes further but instead developing my CAGreenIDEAS.org (CAGI) web site. See my "Announcement" article apologizing for the time I have taken on CAGI and away from WLTRes development.
The primary goal of the WLProd site has been and will continue to be to facilitate the work of instructional designers and content developers with their instructional needs analysis, instructional design, and instruction development and testing of web based course-ware. Evidence of useful web tools that enable educators to perform this work should become evident in the remaining months of 2012 and in early 2013. If you already have a distance learning lesson or class developed or a lesson or class or curriculum in-development, PLEASE consider putting a copy of it on the WLProd site for further development in what I hope will be the "more advanced" ways discussed on the WLTRes and WLTProd web sites.
The WebLearningClasses (a.k.a. WLClasses) web site has existed for one year and is under very early development (i.e. I have not built it out at all as of 12.08.29). The primary goal of the WLClasses site will be to facilitate the distance learning class prototyping, test-using and test-use evaluations, and the final deployment of lessons and/or classes that are the work-products of instructional designers and content developers as well as the end-user educators and some brave volunteer student (or graduated students) willing to test-use any prototyped or "release candidate 1+" or "version 1.x" instances of a distance learning class or training. Any such deployed lessons or classes on the WLTClasses site, or taken from the site, MUST be offered free to the poorest students and at very low cost to those less able to afford a fee.
I, JGW, now have a bit more time to explore "porting" the above "Web Learning" Joomla! sites and their contents to a "90+% clone" Drupal 6 or Drupal 7 site of a similar name, content, and with the same or better distance learning enabling functions. For the record: Drupal 7 is fast becoming the CMS-of-choice for many colleges and universities across the USA as of summer 2012. But there is as yet no "stable version 1+" release of a specifically brick-and-mortar and/or distance learning education-enabling distribution of Drupal ...or of Joomla! for that matter.
So register for an account on WLTRes, log in, and contribute your thoughts and feature wish lists to that site; start a tiny lesson or class outline on WLTProd when that site announces log ins are possible. Maybe the WLTRes, WLTProd, and WLTClasses sites will become show cases of what progressive educators and computer technicians, all fans of creating better affordable public education, can do better than the large well financed global corporations that are buying up closed public schools and college campuses in the hopes of turning them into more private, for-profit educational institutions.