At the January Board Meeting of OpenVES, Marsha Lamb was unanimously elected as the President of OpenVES. As the chief executive of the non-profit corporation her responsibilities include providing national educational leadership in support of a National eLearning Infrastructure Initiative, building collaborations and forging coalitions in this country and around the world, advancing fund raising and development activities in the OpenVES public private partnerships, presiding over the Center of Excellence in Open PK12 eLearning and Research, and working with Sandbox states to deliver the OpenVES value proposition. Marsha takes on a special additional responsibility as the caretaker for the "Universal Child". The child was "born" at the Fall Open eLearning Conference in Sheffield Massachusetts and will be entering High School in 2015. Each year OpenVES will report and focus on the educational environments available to support children of the age of the Universal Child. The child also will remind us of our responsibilities to the UN "Education For All" initiative, whose goal is to bring a primary education to every child on earth by 2015 as a basic human right.

Marsha Lamb is passionate about technology and its ability to improve how people learn. She believes in it and lives it every day. She has significant leadership experience, including recently working with Cisco Learning Institute as Advisor to the Executive Director and Advocate for their mission.  In addition, she currently serves with Global Knowledge Exchange as Vice President for their Foundation.  Marsha brought a computer into her Montessori class in 1980. The reaction of the children was so immediate and positive, that she decided to become an advocate for educational technology.  Her career has now spanned more than twenty years, blending nearly every application of high technology to the art and science of learning systems.  Hear what she has to say:

 “There is no time to waste.  We now have the tools to do everything better.  It’s just a matter of putting them in the hands of teachers and learners.  The children deserve our focus.  Their teachers deserve our confidence.” 

Advanced computing architectures are being implemented all around the world right now.  By applying new design principles based on research, OpenVES is able to share the development process with user organizations, tailoring solutions to meet their own unique needs and goals.  OpenVES is about collaboration and trust, not competition and compartmentalization.  This difference comes at a critical time for States.

 “We will keep building and integrating tools that learners want, teachers need, and parents expect.  It is clear that a managed, open architecture is the most adaptable, cost-effective method of sharing and growing knowledge capital among the citizens of a participatory democracy."

"We are late living up to the educational potential of our technology in America and around the world.  The time is now.  Join us, and together we will lead the way.”

What do these countries:  Armenia, Azerbaijan, Canada, Chile, Ghana, Great Britain, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Taiwan-China have in common with New York City and the Berkshires?  They all have K12 students participating in the Peace Diaries II project, which uses OpenVES XL technology. After the months of online interactive activity, study, artwork and original writing, the results of student work will soon be posted on the public www.peacediaries.org website and the production of the hardcopy book which culminates the project will begin. All students and teachers participating in the project will receive a copy of the book which contains their work.  

OpenVES XL technology provided the framework for student work on three challenging assignments, multiple revision cycles with teacher comments, an interactive teacher gradebook, and atlas, calendar, and collaboration tools delivered in a personalized, role-based workspace.  

Watch for more news on this important and exciting organization in the months to come. 

From time to time we are asked what OpenVES is, what the technology is and how the pieces fit together. This diagram illustrates the technology, business, research, standards and operations areas OpenVES will be working in during 2003. Each of the components deserve a little description.  

Academic Center of Excellence in Open PK12 eLearning and Research - The Center of Excellence will be the venue for our NSF grant activity, Social Computing research, other research activities, work with the Visionaries on media literacy, work with Sesame Workshop on early learning, and the emerging partnership with the MIT Media Lab Future of Learning Program. Although this research will cut across all grade levels and disciplines it will be focused most importantly on early learning, rich media networking, and social computing.  

edXML Technical Committee - This OASIS standards community will be the focal point of controlled vocabularies, schema, taxonomies, thesauri and  published subject indexes for the PK12 community of practice. In edXML we will host a requirements portal. It will also be the publishing forum for XML versions of the authoratative NCES data handbooks. We will work with partners in OASIS to bring some of the best available industry talent to bear on PK12 community requirements.  

XL - XL is the new branding for the core eLearning infrastructure, virtual learning environment and portal. It is designed to be the reference implementation of the IEEE standards, IMS specifications, and the XML specifications which emerge from the edXML Technical Committee. XL has many meanings in this context. Some are: extreme learning, extra large, excel, etc.   

National eLearning Infrastructure Initiative ( neii ) - neii is an initiative designed to motivate states to share and collaborate as they build and implement statewide eLearning infrastructure. It is also the shared, collaborative sustaining model for the ongoing management and operation of statewide infrastructure.  

The Sandbox - The Sandbox is the hosting and operations center, help desk, gateway and national clearinghouse. It supports the OpenVES reference schools, participating states, international projects, and pilots and prototypes with content providers and publishers. The sandbox makes it possible for organizations to use the XL technology without making large investments in hardware and software.  

International Projects - Through OpenVES participation in ISEDO as a charter member, and the production hosting of the Peace Diaries II international education projects, we expect to be very busy supporting international projects, including UN Education for All initiative, the European Union 6th Framework projects, and other ICT initiatives especially those in developing countries.

STANDARDS GROUPS WORKING TOGETHER

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and WASHINGTON, D.C. - October 31, 2002 - Leading organizations developing specifications for e-learning technology in higher education, schools, and technical training are now working together to coordinate strategy and conduct common activities. This informal coalition of the ADL Co-Laboratory (ADL), the MIT Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI), the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF), and the IMS Global Learning Consortium  (IMS) recognizes ongoing informal collaboration among the participants. The group intends to formalize its common activities and address shortfalls in its collective support for adopters of e-learning standards and technology across application sectors. Participation in the coalition may expand if appropriate.

"This coalition is important for OKI because it will allow us to amplify the impact of OKI's results," said Vijay Kumar, Assistant Provost and Director of Academic Computing at MIT. "The design and implementation that OKI is generating will address the needs of multiple communities, as well as improve the quality and sustainability of e-learning for higher education," he said.

"Our coalition approach ensures that the SCORM and related specifications will be broadly applicable," added Paul Jesukiewicz, Director of the ADL Co-Laboratory. "One of ADL's goals is to facilitate the development of a standards-based e-learning industry in order to lower the overall cost and development time of e-learning products and services for participants in the ADL Co-Lab. Recognizing the existing collaborative efforts among these organizations and working to achieve better alignment to common goals addresses our key objective. At the same time, it simplifies the procurement process and increases the speed with which e-learning can be adopted," he said.

"Participants in the SIF consortium benefit directly from this coalition in two ways," observed Tim Magner, SIF Director. "Working together with representatives from other domains ensures that the special requirements of the K-12 educational environment will be addressed in creating general e-learning standards. It also raises the likelihood that technology incorporating those standards can be adopted and used in schools in order to improve overall data management and provide educational experiences to children, their teachers and the school community," he said.

BRIGHTON, MASSACHUSETTS - 1 October 2002 - Hundreds of students, parents, educators, partners, supporters and officials came together to celebrate with great joy at the ribbon cutting ceremony of the TechBoston Academy. The ceremony was opened by Mary Skipper, Chief Education Officer, and Alvin Cooper, Chief Academic Officer who were joined by two 9th grade students, Isaiah Brown and Tatyana Ashley, to welcome a distinguished list of officials and supporters. Those speakers included: David Driscoll, Commissioner of Mass DOE; Boston Mayor Thomas Menino; Linda Keller, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Paul Grogan, President the Boston Foundation; Elizabeth Reilinger - Chair Boston School Committee; and Thomas Payzant, Superintendent BPS. Following congratulatory addresses the distinguished guests joined the student representatives to officially cut the ribbon and dedicate the school as depicted in the picture above.  

The school is unique in many ways, as a pilot school, as a school where every teacher and every student has a laptop computer, where all network connectivity is wireless,  and where a palpable sense of possibility, and the inevitability of success, are in the air. The presence of as many vendor representatives as students to celebrate the dedication, also signifies their significant partnership with, and technology contributions to, the school. The photo below shows classwork in a typical TechBoston Academy classroom. OpenVES wishes TBA, one of our two reference schools, and an experiment the whole nation should be watching, the very best of everything in the coming year. The hard working teachers, students, staff and parents of TechBoston Academy will earn and own their own success.

Delivering digital content to the classroom has always been a challenge. A new document for public content providers describes the issues involved in delivering rich media content to pk12 schools on the Web. It discusses the problem of aggregation entropy and proposes the solution of a standards based, open architecture, eLearning platform.  

It describes each of the issues faced by content providers, the problems to be avoided, the standards employed to solve each problem, and it describes the comprehensive OpenVES solution. The document also describes the alternate digital content delivery models supported by OpenVES which include satellite DVB, cable tv, and local digital broadcast. The document makes the case for digital content provider participation in the OpenVES sandbox pilot and prototype projects. .

Operations at the Sheffield Hosting Facility are underway in support of the OpenVES Reference Schools and the first demos of the Sandbox for states and large cities. The Sandbox will provide pilot and prototype support to 5-7 states that will be experimenting with and customizing the OpenVES eLearning platform. Much integration and development work yet remains for the coming months. The availability of a broadcast video studio and multiple satellite infrastructure in Sheffield will accelerate development of OpenVES streaming media solutions.  Watch this space for announcements soon of a number of content partnerships and pilot programs for OpenVES.

September is Standards Month

The month of September is bristling with standards based activities both here and in Europe. The SIF Annual Meeting, is to be held September 16-18 at the Key Bridge Marriott in Rosslyn, VA.The UK Metadata for Education Group (MEG) is meeting in Edinburgh on the 17th. IMS will be holding its quarterly meeing in Sheffield from the 23rd to the 27th, with the Public Forum on the 26th. There is much important work to report on in those meetings. At the same time in Glasgow, the Scottish Education and Teaching with Technology Show (SETT) is going on. On the 28th the Valkenburg Group will be meeting in Paris to continue work on the Education Modeling Language (EML) specifications. Following that meeting, PROMETEUS the European eLearning Consortium will meet on the 29th and 30th, also in Paris. Finally, on the CEN/ISSS Learning Technology Workshop will meet in Paris on the 1st and 2nd of October. OpenVES will be participating in just about all of these important meetings. 

MERLOT is a free and open resource designed primarily for faculty and students in higher education. MERLOT helps faculty enhance instruction with a continually growing collection of online, reviewed learning materials and assignments. MERLOT is also a community of educators who strive to enrich teaching and learning.

The second annual MERLOT International Conference will be held at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, September 27 - 30, 2002. MERLOT is endorsed by NLII/EDUCAUSE and the NSF - National Science Digital Library Program. For further information about MERLOT go to The Tasting Room.

EDUCAUSE 2002 is the premier information technology gathering for higher education. The 2002 program is built around the open, productive exchange of ideas and experiences, and focuses on the most critical issues facing IT professionals today.

Research at the Digital Edge

The greatest technology challenge faced by school infrastructure today is staying ahead of, and incorporating, the pervasive wave of digital edge devices coming into schools each day.  Rather than saying to students, "Turn off your devices", we should be creating connected learning communities with them.

A key research goal of OpenVES is to integrate a "transparent edge" into the eLearning environment so that wireless handheld devices and even next generation cell phones can be part of the school network.

This research will include target platforms like the Sharp Zaurus Linux/Java PDA, Java Phones, and a Wireless Tablet Computer using IEEE 802.11b and BlueTooth. Software includes JXTA and support for SMS, WAP, WML, XML, XSL, XHTML, and HTTP.

August 09, 2002
Frames to be sorted

August 08, 2002
New UK governmental e-learning standards body proposed.

August 06, 2002
Dublin Core Metadata anounces new usage documents

August 05, 2002
Your content in DSpace.

MADISON PARK HIGH SCHOOL - Boston, MA - The countdown to the first day of of classes is underway, and the teams from the OpenVES reference shools have been meeting to make plans for the deployment of teacher and student tools when school begins. From left to right this photo shows, from Southern Berkshire - Paul O'Brien, and from TechBoston Academy - Kent Dowling, Frank Eason, and Mary Skipper, with Alice Santiago from Boston Public Schools. TechBoston Academy is putting the finishing touches on the renovation of their new facility at the Taft Middle School complex, as they prepare to welcome their first class of ninth graders  Mount Everett Regional School in the Berkshires is preparing to use OpenVES technology with their incoming 9th graders.  

Teachers in the two reference schools will start the school year with an online instructional journal and planner that will integrate standards based content with their courses, activities and rosters. Teachers in the schools will be directly involved in the decisions on the priorities and implementation of student competency profiles, individual learning plans and digital portfolios. Web hosting services, streaming video services, email and other collaboration support will be available for instructional programs. 

In May 2002, the Working Group for Learning Design (WG LD) of IMS proposed their base document for the Learning Design Specification  to the Technical Board members of IMS. From the 28 members, 19 voted Yes and 4 voted No. WG LD is currently addressing the questions and comments that were raised.....but this hurdle has been taken. The next track has been started at the request of the IMS management  to finalize the LD specification within the next six months.

Jocelyn Manderveld, representing the OUNL in the WG LD,  explains: "In the Boston meeting last month, they decided that for all the specifications being worked out by the different Working Groups - like Simple Sequencing, Content Packaging and of course Learning Design itself - a kind of harmonization effort would be started in order to  prevent contradictions and encourage smooth integration of all the IMS work". 

"With our LD-group we will concentrate hard to finish the work: Information Model, the bindings, the Best Practices, Use Cases and Implementation Guide. You can expect the public draft of our LD-specification this November. Besides that, we will help as much as we can to harmonize the work of the key Working Groups." - [from OU Website]

Not for beginners, nor the technically faint. This was the edge, the hard bits, the theory behind the practice, the practice that outstrips current theory -- the Extreme. OpenVES attended the conference and participated in the full day tutorial titled, \fs18 "Using Topic Maps to manage vocabulary, documentation, and knowledge structures: Content structure engineering" and taught by Bernard Vatant from Mondeca.

Interestingly, a number of the people working on XML Topic Maps are former or present school teachers. This includes Jack Park who just wrote the definitave book on Topic Maps, and included a chapter in it by his middle school children. There are currently three Technical Committees working on TM Published Subjects in OASIS, and we will be participating with them as we tackle PK12 Published Subjects.

The OpenVES vendor partners have agreed to contribute almost two million dollars in hardware and software licenses to build an OpenVES “sandbox” configuration, as part of the public – private partnership. Beginning next school year, 5 to 7 states will implement the OpenVES technology in the form of pilots and prototypes. Led by principal sponsor Sun Microsystems, the vendors include Calendra, Computer Associates, Fujitsu Software Corporation, SoftwareAG, and RedHat.

TS Vreeland, Architect and Chief Technologist for OpenVES said, “The exciting initiatives announced at the NECC conference included a ‘Call to Action’, the creation of a new standards community to give voice to PK-12 public education requirements, and the construction of the OpenVES 'sandbox' hosting environment for multiple states.” He issued an open invitation to states and vendors to participate in the OpenVES standards and sandbox activities next year, saying, “There is room in this project for all those committed to openness and sharing, and we welcome them”.

The OpenVES announcements at NECC also included a Call for Participation to new, potential vendor partners. The first meeting of the OpenVES vendor alliance will be held next September, so there is still time for interested hardware, software, content, and service providers to learn more about the OpenVES eLearning Platform and to join the alliance. Vendors are also being invited to participate in the formation of the edXML group in OASIS.

“The kind of public-private sector collaboration that is taking place around OpenVES is incredibly exciting”, said Shizuo Inagaki, President of Fujitsu Software Corporation. “We are thrilled to be part of it and to contribute to improving PK-12 education through the use of standards-based technology”.

This new public-private partnership will be open to all states, school districts, and non-profit educational entities. The first group of seven selected states will be enrolled in a program of activity, which will provide a hosted eLearning platform, services, training, customization workshops, focus groups, and content integration support. At the end of the program, the participating states will be in a better position to make decisions regarding requirements and implementation of portal and eLearning platforms in their state. The OpenVES model includes mutually beneficial sharing between states and opportunities for elimination of duplication of effort through greater collaboration and coordination among states.

According to Brice Michel , CEO of Calendra “This is an excellent opportunity for the states to come together and provide a comprehensive e-learning program. E-learning is fast becoming a valuable asset to all citizens and the PK-12 sector need not be left behind. Calendra is excited about being part of this program. [For text of full Press Release click on "Learn More"]

The Conversation is the nation's only education event that unites chief information officers, chief technology officers, state and municipal education executives and senior IT industry executives from around the country.

SNS is being provided for free, has an Application Programming Interface (API) so others can develop applications for it, and is open source so that everyone can participate in enhancing and supporting it. SNS includes tools such as secure login, well-defined user roles and group types, file system, calendar & task manager, chat & discussion boards, notes & document creator, and homework notification. The system’s strength and potential for longevity lie in its Open Source (GNU Public License) development model, object and process oriented operating environment, and a robust application programming interface (API). Many schools (internationally) have downloaded SNS for trials and a number are currently engaged in pilot programs.