Click here to watch Dear EdTech, ELMSLN is here and it wants to replace your vendors.

Presentation Trailer now available!

This summer.. Coming to a server near you... ELMS...

Let's do this!

I am one of many Drupal developers in the educational technology space and I have a message for you. Tired of half-baked, closed source solutions with massive support contracts? Education doesn't have to have its hands tied by technological complacency.

The time is now to replace old ways of thinking, and the approach is here. In this presentation I will discuss and demonstrate the latest ELMS initiative known as ELMS Learning Network (ELMSLN). ELMSLN is a distro-of-distros package built using primarily (but not limited to) Drupal (Piwik is in there too for example).

This ain't your Drupal 6 ELMS distro. This is a series of distributions that use Restful APIs (RestWS) and a simple, repeatable pattern for the automated building of new Drupal sites. Think Aegir meets edtech while aligning more with the needs of education. To visualize what I'm describing:

• Watch "ELMSLN doodles: Understanding ELMSLN"
• Read ELMSLN Philosophy/Theory

Using a combination of Galaxy packaging specification, DSLM, a bunch of automation (thanks drush!), and the ELMS CIS distribution, ELMSLN is able to rapidly produce new course tools. These tools then are connected via web services to form a network-based approach to learning management system design. Imagine deploying a system for use in a course at a new web address, then equate that to one Drupal distribution. Now, just keep doing it over the life-cycle of systems development, each new system being a new address containing a multi-site of a different distro.

Stitch it together with JSON, single sign-on and OAuth based standards like Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) and you've got a highly flexible, while still very usable, networked LMS. Completely manageable by small teams, and consistently more powerful then what any one vendor can provide via closed systems.

To quote @kreynen that suggested I submit this by the following title..

"ELMS, we're not selling a product. We're building a platform for an #edtech revolution" - @kreynen (March 6th 2014)

In this session you will learn

• What is ELMSLN
• Who's using ELMSLN (Penn State and UW Madison)
• Where to get it
• Vagrant to get started using ELMSLN today!
• How to win over and excite administrators about ELMSN with a solid use case report.
• That if enough people harass me on Twitter I'll submit a DrupalCon session
• That this is my life's work

Links

• Clone ELMSLN on Github
• Vagrant Up ELMSLN Vagrant instance

College, university and edtech unite!

About the Speaker

Architect of the ELMS initiative at Penn State, Bryan Ollendyke is a tireless advocate for using Drupal to change education and society. He's been developing for Drupal since '07 and has several hundred modules, distributions, features, and themes to his credit; all released back to the drupal community under GPL. He's an organizer of the Penn State Drupal user's group, social organizer, edtech developer, drupal change agent, hockey player, happy father of two and husband of one.