eLearning 2.0 Technologies and Concepts: Free Hosted eLearning 2.0 Platforms in Action

In this post I am presenting several free hosted platforms suitable for teaching and/or learning management. Also, I wish to show the situation in 2009 in point of view Web 2.0 technologies integration in eLearning platforms and as a continuous review of Zaid Ali Alsagoff's blog post "Any Free Hosted CMS or LMS?" from February 2008.
In the explored eLearning platforms functional features that they propose varied. I will mention the basic functional requirement for one learning environment: course design, content development and access, enrollment and tracking, knowledge and skill assessment, communication. Groups with special interests, communities forming and network organizing are typical characteristics for 2.0 mode. Some of the recent eLearning platforms offer a full cycle of authoring-management-delivery. Most of them are mashable and flexible through tools for media content creation and delivery in the form of wiki, blog, microblog, A/V/images/widgets code embedding, RSS subscription.
Last semester I used Edu 2.0 and it really supports my teaching and students' formal and informal learning. Edu 2.0 is not designed specially for Higher Education, but rather for Schools. The environment integrates tools for lessons structuring (sequentially or hierarchical), rich media integration, student participation in: PLE building, Portfolio forming, resource sharing in the community library, collaboration and communication. Also, I motivated them to use start pages for PLE extending and Ning for widening of their learning Portfolio, Glogser, SlideShare, Vimeo and other Web 2.0 tools to enhance their learning process. In Edu 2.0 the schools and colleges can be reached after registration. New features are constantly being added to the system. The latest one is a perfect solution which was missing then - a public school portal (in my case the address is: http://tu-kee.edu20.org/site).

It would be good if information about the ideology of eLearning platform development could be proposed on their sites to orient educators about the possible pedagogic strategies realization.

I hope that this information will be useful for educators and I recommend them to try at least one of the following eLearning platforms:

CollegeBrain is a Course Management System and it enables course instructors to consolidate, view, and manage content and students.

EctoLearning is a social, collaborative, online learning environment and Learning Management System with attendance tracking, grade book, and an assessment engine including the use of rubrics based evaluations.

Edu2.0 is a learning management system with community features and a public library. The classes are available after registration in the system and after class enrollment. Several class examples are provided below:

1. Internet Technologies and Web Design
2. Course of Computer Aided Graphics
3. eLearning 2.0 & Beyond

Eduslide (Tutorom): Tutorom allows educators to create online educational content and deliver it, to form community and network. If you would like to use this software on your own network (based on php and MySQL), it is also available free as open source, from eduslide.org.

Lessons:
1. Adobe Photoshop CS2: Learn how to use Adobe Photoshop from a web designer and graphic designers point of view (39 lessons)
2. Algebra I: This course will make math come alive with its many intriguing examples of algebra in the world around you (4 lessons)
3. Adobe Photoshop Basics: Free Online Tutorial for Beginners (1 lesson)

GlobalClassroom is an eLearning platform for course content and students management, custom branding and collaboration.

Free courses access after system registration and course enrollment:
1. Utilizing WordPress to Blog and Podcast
2. Moodle Tutorial - How to Build Courses with Moodle

The KEEP Toolkit is a set of web-based tools for selecting and organizing teaching and learning materials, prompting analysis and reflection by using templates, transforming materials and reflections into visually appealing and engaging representations, sharing ideas for peer-review, assessment, and collective knowledge building, facilitating knowledge exchange and dissemination.
KEEP Toolkit is implemented in Apache, PHP, and MySQL and it is available as open source.
Collections of resources for K-12 teachers and teacher educators you can find on the site Inside Teaching. The Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education proposes a collection that includes hand-built faculty teaching portfolios and scholarship of teaching and learning projects that were created over a period of eight years.

LearnHub is a social learning network of communities and experts. It is a pool of resources and knowledge representing different subjects and subcategories.
I selected only several learning communities from the treasure of the LearnHub:
1. Cooperative Learning (115 lessons)
2. Blended Learning and Instruction (55 lessons)
3. Geography (36 lessons)
4. Mathematics (149 lessons)
5. Journalism (63 lessons)

LectureShare is an online platform for course materials sharing. The instructor's tools include course and student management center, grade book, announcement posts. The search engine can help you to find the right courses.
Here are several public available courses (after system registration and course enrollment):
1. Advanced CRT: The focus of this course is on CPT surgery coding and CPT and HCPCS modifier usage
2. Mathematics: This course covers topics on quadratic equations, exponents and radicals, exponential and logarithmic functions, higher degree equations (cubics), trigonometric functions, sequences and series
3. Intro to Computers:

Lecturio is a course based system that allows educatots to offer their students study multimedia content cost effectively and, above all, centrally accessible. The system is in German, but there are courses in English that are available without registraion:

1. Data Communication and Internet Technology

2. Distributed Systems

3. Organic Computing

Multiply is an online environment for resource sharing, group, school, university content management and networking. Most of the sites of the system can be seen by users after registration.

1. Mapúa Institute of Technology
2. Cebu Doctors' University

MyiCourse is a learning management system. You may find free courses by using the search engine or by going directly to http://learningcenter.myicourse.com and looking at the course catalog.

NfoMedia is a learning management system, specially designed for Higher Education. The courses can be opened and closed and they can be reached after system registration. The search engine supports finding a course.

1. English 1C course of University of California
2. Computer Literacy course of Bolton High School

Pyuple is a course management system with features for networking and communication. Here you can search for courses.

RedGrove is a content based system for knowledge sharing of teachers, professionals and learners. A wide range of topics can be discussed in RedGrove network.

Sclipo is a social platform for teaching and learning with possibilities for course creation, live sessions, storage in a vast library.

TalkBean is an eLearning solution for knowledge and experience sharing via virtual communication rooms. You have to download and install TalkBean Live software to perform your lessons.

WizIQ is a free online teaching and eLearning platform with a web conferencing possibility. The sessions are recorded if you can not participate or if you wish to repeat some lessons. Great classes by Nellie Deutsch you can find here.

Yacapaca is the leading free online assessment platform. It helps teachers assess students through multiple choice, short-text tests, eportfolios and other popular methods. It includes automarking and analysis tools, and has a complete suite of authoring tools. A thriving community of authors collaborates to create and perfect new assessment materials that are then available for all to use.

If you have teaching/learning experience with the environments mentioned above or with another, please share your opinion, cons and pros about the effectiveness of the provided learning process!

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