Today’s e-learning tools and environments are mainly limited to web-based forms of interaction. – Only a few synchronous tools are on the e-learning market. We present our Eclipse based Rich Client application mediarena which works as a synchronous client for the Paderborn open source collaborative system open-sTeam. Mediarena offers an extendable toolkit on so called knowledge-spaces. Knowledge-spaces with their documents, hypertexts and learning materials can be structured in various ways. As part of our didactical ‚Jour Fixe‘ concept mediarena allows the learners to structure knowledgespaces as part of courses and seminars.
FLYWHEEL
The goal of the flywheel framework is to provide a modular, extendable and at the same time fast and platform independent basis for client applications targeting the open-sTeam system. Flywheel is build on top of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) a framework for component-based applications that provides common components for application development. Therefore flywheel shares the same foundation as the well-known Eclipse IDE a modular development environment.
MEDIARENA
Mediarena is a very adaptable application. Mediarena build on top of flywheel framework is our newest approach in creating client applications for the CSCW/L system open-sTeam. The editor is a graphical representation of a virtual knowledge-space in open-sTeam. The user can navigate by following links. It provides functions for a graphical-semantic arrangement of knowledge and rich media objects through drag&drop operations. The palette on the left is used to create new objects in the virtual knowledge-space. In addition to tools for creating standard objects inside the virtual knowledgespace the palette also provides simple paint tools.
The created lines, circles and other graphical primitives may be used for a graphic-semantically arrangement of other objects. The object outline that lists all knowledge objects in the current user context, and the navigator on the right help the user to navigate especially in large knowledge-spaces. The outline is also used to control object layers on the graphical editor pane by drag&drop. Synchronous communication with other users is realized via the build-in chat.