Learning Management Systems
FC can support a number of OSS Learning Management Systems (LMS), including:
- Dokeos: A Learning Management System, distributed under GPL (Version 2, June 1991). The product started from a fork of Claroline, another learning management system. Dokeos implements a mix of instructional design and social/constructivist approaches. It was built corresponding to the traditional instructional design, and its structure is very close to traditional teaching (set of tools clearly marked as content creation tools), but extends this base by providing tools that encourage constructivism (forums, blogs, wikis, chat, file exchange, depositories, personal messaging, etc). The instructional design generally improves the simplicity of use by using known teaching strategies and allowing teachers to extend on this known base by adding social tools step by step. This approach can lead to a reduced flexibility compared to a constructivist approach. The tools offered by the Dokeos platform include SCORM Courses authoring, Rapid learning, Templates-based document production, Tests: multiple choice, fill-in-the-blanks, matching, open questions, hotspots, Interaction: forums, chats, groups, Surveys, Gradebook, Reservations, Users sessions, LDAP and OpenID authentication.
- Moodle: a Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a Free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites. Moodle has a large and diverse user community with over 899572 registered users on this Moodle site alone, speaking over 78 languages in 210 countries. Moodle is an open source Web application (released under the GNU General Public License) designed for producing Internet-based courses and websites. It is written in PHP, runs on nearly every available server platform, and can be used by anyone with a Web browser. Moodle is a Web-based application that helps people create dynamic sites where learning communities can communicate and collaborate. Such communities may range from a university course or a secondary school class, to a professional association or company doing training. It contains a lot of tools and techniques distilled from the experiences of a huge community of educators to make these processes easy without sacrificing flexibility, and provides a variety of activity modules ranging from forums and chatrooms through quizzes and surveys, to workshops, lessons and assignments. Being open source and free, anyone can install it wherever they like.
Multimedia Lessons
FC undertakes the design and/or development of specialised multimedia lessons utilising technologies, such as:
- eLML: The
eLesson Markup Language (eLML) , is an XML framework developed by the GITTA project. This open source XML framework allows for creating structured eLessons using XML. Once an eLML-lesson is created, it can be transformed into many different output-formats like IMS Content Package or SCORM, various HTML-templates, eBooks (ePub format), PDF, Office-Document (ODF) and many more. - SCORM: The Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) is a standard for web-based e-learning. It defines how the individual instruction elements are combined on a technical level and sets conditions for the software needed for using the content. SCORM is distributed by the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative, a US organization under the Department of Defense (DoD).
- SVG: The Scalable Vector Graphics, is a standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It is an open, XML-based format to describe graphics and animations and can be used as an alternative to the proprietary Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Flash formats.
- ePub: The ePub-Format is an XML-based packaging format for eBooks, like SCORM or IMS CP but with a differnt manifest file. It is currently supported by most popular eBook readers (except for Amazon Kindle!) and it became even more popular with Apple's announcement to support it on its iPad. EPUB is designed for reflowable content, meaning that the text display can be optimized for the particular display device. The format is meant to function as a single format that publishers and conversion houses can use in-house, as well as for distribution and sale. It supersedes the Open eBook standard.