I came across ATutor as part of my investigations into alternatives to the traditional VLE offerings and whilst I found it's interface a bit stark my respect grew for what the development team are trying to achieve. I believe there are valuable lessons built into the architecture of ATutor. If you want to know more then read on! The project site describes ATutor as:
“… an Open Source Web-based Learning Content Management System (LCMS) designed with accessibility and adaptability in mind. Administrators can install or update ATutor in minutes. Educators can quickly assemble, package, and redistribute Web-based instructional content, and conduct their courses online. Students learn in an adaptive learning environment … In designing ATutor we have had the specific goal in mind of creating an adaptive learning environment that anyone could use. Regardless of how people go about learning, and regardless of the technology they might be using to learn online, ATutor is designed to accommodate all learners. ”
ATutor enjoys the support of:
- The Adaptive Technology Resource Centre (ATRC) at the University of Toronto
- The Learning Disabilities Resource Community (LDRC)
- Office of Learning Technology (OLT), a division of HRDC Canada
- Industry Canada (AForm)
- People with Disabilities Online (HRDC Canada) (ACollab financial support)
- InfoSecure (HRDC Canada) (ACollab functionality)
There's a couple of things that really caught my interest. First, their demonstration button took me to their 'Learning to Learn' course which is certainly a rigorous and impressive piece of work. Second, is that an ATutor 'chunks' of ATutor content can be exported as an IMS/SCORM package with ease (see the example screenshot below).
Now, in my opinion, this feature should show the rest of us what faciltating redistribution and reuse should be all about. ATutor content isn't 'locked in' and there isn't any complex process necessary to get it out. Click the link and whatever you're looking at is sent directly to you as a standards conformant package. Now for the conceptual leap! What a real killer feature it would be if the IMS/SCORM export feature was supplemented by a RSS feed of any particular chunk so that, for example, an RSS parser in another application, e.g. a weblog could get access to specific learning objects within ATutor and related repositories without having to navigate the whole interface (I'll expand on this latter point in a later article).
The broader point I'm making here is that many (all) other virtual learning environments seem hell bent on forcing users to navigate their complete system just to access a particular chunk of content or specific functional area. ATutor is the first environment I've seen which seems to appreciate that's not always what people want. Let's have more of this please. RSS would be a quick win for ATutor and hopefully not too difficult to implement. I've posted to their forum making this very point.
