We have participated in several seminars and workshops in the two areas of
Internetics curriculum and Learning Technologies. These include tutorials
at Jackson State and Rice University, presentation to NCSA industrial
partners and NSF meetings for NPACI and European collaboration. In May 00
we presented on both topics at the MSI meeting in Washington DC
http://www.new-npac.org/users/fox/presentations/msicsitedmay00/index.htm
http://www.new-npac.org/users/fox/presentations/msiedportalmay00/index.htm
As chief technologist for Florida State's distance learning activity,
we have developed expertise in both Blackboard and IMS technologies/standards
We are developing tutorials on these and have incorporated lessons into a
new collaborative portal architecture described in
http://www.new-npac.org/users/fox/documents/generalportalmay00/ and
http://www.new-npac.org/users/fox/documents/erdctraining.pdf
Note IMS and ADL SCORM proposals for educational objects are interesting but
seemingly flawed as they assume a client server architecture and not a three tier
system with two interface points (resourceML and portalML)

We believe our new architecture has some key features of importance to education
1) The personal server will support multiple displays and user customization
   allowing universal access including hand-held devices
2) A federated event service with database support will more easily support
   synchronous (with late comers) and asynchronous access -- both of these
   have been shown to be essential.
3) Modular design allows use of Access Grid and learning objects from WebCT,
   Blackboard and Lotus
Components of this system are being developed now with a prototype integrated
system targeted for December 00.