TLINC Project Platform

In a new partnership with Pearson, the TLINC community has a new platform available to support its work (read more about the partnership here). The platform is an offering from Elluminate called LearnCentral. The platform is a true, socio-academic network, built using the NING and “Yahoo! For Teachers” feature list and product management team. Pearson has partnered with Elluminate to provide community sites for each of the NCTAF granted schools as well as the NCTAF organization itself. LearnCentral is based on Drupal, an open source content management software. LearnCentral is a freely accessible and open site; anyone may join. But the platform allows for private and separate instances of the same code. The instances function as completely separate networks, but have the ability to be federated to the public site.

The new platform has the feel of other Web 2.0 social networks, including the ability to develop a personal profile, write a blog, store and post resources, and participate in public and private discussions. The platform is easily navigable and has a search feature that will allow users to find others based on characteristics and keywords. It also has extended collaborative capabilities including video, desktop, and resource sharing; live video and chat discussions; and asynchronous threaded discussions. Interactions between participants are recordable and archiveable so that users will be able to review previous discussions. Finally, there is expanded storage capability so that teachers may post and share resources, even those taking a large amount of memory.

During its first three years, the TLINC project utilized an online platform called Tapped In, an open source platform created by SRI International.  Tapped In uses the metaphor of a campus; the TLINC project has a “virtual building” on this campus.  Each of our site partners hosted a “floor” in our TLINC building, and groups met in “rooms” on their site’s floor.  Group rooms can be public or private, and are generally led by a facilitator.  Each participant has his or her own virtual office that can be customized.