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Getting Educational Systems Talking Across Leading-Edge Technologies

Active Groups and Links

In addition to being the lead partner in the GESTALT Project, Fretwell-Downing is participating in the formation of the CEN/ISSS Learning Technology Working Group with a specific emphasis on European requirements. Brief descriptions of groups active in this area are given below.

Instructional Management Systems (IMS)

The Instructional Management System Project (IMS) offers a new modular approach to online education. Being developed by a group of software companies, publishers, and universities, it aims to lower the costs of education and improve access to learning. IMS investors include IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Unisys, Sun Microsystems, Peoplesoft, Simon & Schuster, International Thomson Publishing, KPMG, the US Departments of Labor and Defense and the Universities of North Carolina, California, and Michigan, amongst others.
http://www.imsproject.com

IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC)

The mission of IEEE LTSC working groups is to develop technical Standards, Recommended Practices, and Guides for software components, tools, technologies and design methods that facilitate the development, deployment, maintenance and interoperation of computer implementations of education and training components and systems.
http://www.manta.ieee.org/p1484/

Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM)

The National Library of Education and the U.S. Department of Education are supporting a consortium effort to create an operational framework to provide America's teachers with "one-stop, any-stop" access to Internet-based educational resources. According to Michael B. Eisenberg, co-principal investigator for the GEM project, "This project's goal is to provide a new set of tools to get information into the hands of educators quickly and easily so that children can learn."
http://www.geminfo.org/

Alliance of Remote Instructional Authoring and Distribution Networks for Europe (ARIADNE)

ARIADNE is a research and technology development (RTD) project pertaining to the "Telematics for Education and Training" sector of the 4th Framework Program for R&D of the European Union. The project focuses on the development of tools and methodologies for producing, managing and reusing computer-based pedagogical elements and telematics supported training curricula. Validation of the project's concepts is currently taking place in various academic and corporate sites across Europe.
http://ariadne.unil.ch/

Reseau D'Enseignement Multimedia (REM)

REM is a Telematics for Education & Training project to develop computer network support for learning which is based on people collaborating on real projects, sharing knowledge and information. "We feel that learning comes from undertaking action on ideas and materials and generating new activities and ideas. It is a process that involves conversation, reflection, research, empirical action in the world and yet more conversation."
http://weblife.bangor.ac.uk/

© Fretwell Downing Education, 1999.

Updated 12-MAR-1999

Send comments or questions to kriley@fdgroup.co.uk