[Edu-sig] ANN: Action Learning Environment

[Brad Cox]

This list may be interested in the alpha release of Active Learning 
Environment (ALE) at http://virtualschool.edu/ale. Its an ambitious 
application of Java, XML and Velocity for web-based experiential 
learning.

This is relevant to Python for historical reasons, to education for 
obvious ones. The first version was in Perl, the second in Zope, the 
third in Java and Jython (via the BSD bridge). On yes, there was a 
Ruby version along the way somewhere. Gave up on Jython when the 
Jython-Java bridge proved fragile and slow and returned to the 
Java+Velocity approach I tried just after Perl.

I'm not really a fan of Velocity (or Java for that matter), but the 
current approach seems to be working out well and avoids the bridge 
issues I had with Jython. Users see a dynamically checked 
environment; java developers a compile-time-checked one, which seems 
like the right compromise.

Your comments and suggestions would be MOST appreciated! Still 
working on the tutorial and installation instructions but most of the 
system is there now.

-- 
Brad J. Cox, PhD, 703 361 4751, http://virtualschool.edu
        http://virtualschool/ale Action Learning Environment
http://virtualschool.edu/mybank Digital Rights Management System
    http://virtualschool.edu/jco Java Cryptographic Objects (JCO)
   http://virtualschool.edu/jwaa Java Web Application Architecture (JWAA)
  http://virtualschool.edu/java+ Java Preprocessor (Java+)