Last Week at DevLearn
November 15th, 2009 by Avron Barr
The eLearning Guild’s annual DevLearn conference was held in San Jose November 9-13, 2009. The Guild hosted a LETSI meeting on Tuesday the 10th, and arranged for a concurrent session on the 13th, where Mike Rustici talked about LETSI and the Web Services for Learning Run- Time Communication project.
New learning technologies were everywhere at DevLearn, which included multi-day programs on mobile learning, serious games, and social learning, organized by Judy Brown, Alicia Sanchez, and Mark Oehlert, respectively. There was even a conference-long augmented reality game that gave participants hands-on exposure to the technology.
Amidst this creative flood of new teaching ideas, you might wonder if standards had any relevance. Looking just a few years down the line, when some of those ideas have matured into convincing prototypes and successful projects, the value of standards-based software is clear. Standards allow us to share our work with others, to port our systems to other organizations, and to convince investors that our new product ideas have broad market potential. Standards are about viability and sustainability - the true tests of innovation. Web Services for Learning Run-Time Communication
LETSI’s DevLearn session also featured the first public demonstration by the the folks who have been involved in the web services project. The goal of the project is to create a modern, secure software communications framework for web-based training systems. Seven firms demonstrated delivery of elearning with runtime communication across platforms (LMS, browser, PC desktop, mobile), across software frameworks (Java and .NET), and with non-browser content like simulations and games.
This project could be the launching point for a new age of innovation in elearning — the first step towards future multi-systems learning environments to support mobile, multi-player, immersive, and collaborative, and agent-supported learning activities. LETSI’s initial web services definitions are just a first step. And standards themselves only enable interoperability as people discover what kind of data needs to be commuinicated in the multi-system environment. Still, open web service definitions will make it easier for innovators to get their pilot projects used outside the lab.
From A description of the demonstrations is included in this 2-page brochure (PDF)[See appendix]. The following organizations participated:
Booz Allen Hamilton Rustici Software Imedia.it Southwest Research Institute Engineering and Computer Simulations Outstart Intelligent Automation, Inc.
Tags: architecture, Booz Allen Hamilton, DevLearn, ECS, IAI, Imedia.it, Mike Rustici, Outstart, Rustici Software, Southwest Research Institute, web services, working code Posted in Events, LETSI News
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