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Tuesday, October 6, 2009

A Toolkit to Develop E-Learning in an Open (XML) Environment

Returning from content development theory, the gratis/libre debate, and the pros and cons of each approach, this post will focus on the range Opensource.svg of tools that you need to develop e-learning content in a (relatively) open environment.

Now read on…

The key to developing e-learning courseware in an open environment is to use a production model that liberates instructional design and content authoring from your final media outputs. In my view, this means taking an XML-based approach to your e-learning development environment. I would suggest that you need tools and components like the following tools to create an effective authoring and delivering system:

Content Creation Tools

  • DocBook
  • XMLmind XML Editor (XXE)
  • GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)
  • XSLT transformations and XS-FOP formatting object processors


Media Creation and Integration: OSS Tools

  • Audacity
  • CineFX
  • Kompozer
  • OpenOffice.org
  • GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)

Media Creation and Integration: Free-to-use Proprietary Tools
  • Microsoft Producer 2
  • Windows Media Developer’s Kit
  • Garageband
  • iMovie
  • Jing

Content Delivery Platform
  • Apache / MySQL / PHP
  • Moodle
  • Joomla
  • Drupal

Optional Proprietary Tools
  • Adobe Flash
  • Camtasia
  • Roxio Easy Media Creator or Toast

I'll be discussing developing a production model using this toolkit, starting tomorrow.
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2 comments:

bschlenker said...

This is a great roundup intro to help people get started with OpenSource. I truly do believe that there are enough OpenSource tools out there that we can be creating completely opensource learning solutions/environements. Once people get past their initial fears and the stigma, the Open Source learning development community will grow exponentially.

I would also mention Drupal as an option next to Joomla. Drupal has matured over the years and there is a small group of Drupal users creating the required modules for elearning. Good stuff.

thanks for keeping the Open Source movement alive in eLearning.
Cheers!
Brent

www.devlearn2009.com

Michael Hanley said...

Thanks for reading and for taking the time to comment Brent. As you may know, I tend to write series of posts on a given topic (i.e. my recent series on podcasting) rather than 'stand-alone' posts. Over the next few weeks I will be mostly focusing on featuring the apps and utilities in my toolkit (please feel free to add your views / experiences of them) - hopefully the series will go some way to normalizing OSS environments.

BTW - I chose Joomla rather than Drupal because I think that the former is marginally easier to use for newbies to open source CMSs (though my experience is that Drupal is actually more powerful and flexible). If you check back with the post, you'll see that I have now added Drupal to my toolkit too.

If you could point me towards some of the better Drupal e-learning modules, I'd appreciate it, and will discuss them in a future post.

Best,
Michael
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