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MS LearningXP: .Net Meets E-Learning

ExtremeTech - August 13, 2002

Microsoft Research's Learning Sciences & Technology division is building an experimental online-learning architecture based on .Net.

While Microsoft hasn't gone so far as to label its Learning Experiencing Project (LearningXP) environment "Education.Net," it might as well have.

Microsoft Research (MSR) is assembling a host of interfaces, virtual workspaces, simulation tools and gaming environments designed to transform distance learning. Microsoft is developing many of these elements in a way so as to expose them to users as Web services.

To do this, MSR and a host of university and other educational partners are relying on Microsoft's .Net Framework, C# programming language, Passport Internet authentication system, SQL Server and Windows Media Player technologies.

LearningXP's first core deliverable is ConferenceXP, which Microsoft previewed at its Faculty Summit in late July. ConferenceXP, or Conference Experiencing Project, is designed to provide integrated audio, video and networking technologies in a long-distance conference/collaboration environment.

In the longer term, LearningXP also will include other virtual workspaces, which MSR has classified as "the student experience"; "the teacher experience"; "the mentor experience"; "the assessment experience"; "the classroom experience."

MSR also has on the drawing board a number of even more futuristic LearningXP technologies, including a simulation and gaming environment tailored for education and a physical simulation platform.

MSR is building a portal interface, which it has dubbed "The Edge," to present learners with a unified user interface.

MSR officials caution that ConferenceXP and other LearningXP technologies are research, at this point, and not products. They offer no timetable as to when Microsoft may transfer any of these technologies to Microsoft product groups to build into commercial products.

For now, Microsoft is offering a downloadable version of ConferenceXP with which interested parties may dabble.

ConferenceXP consists of two parts: a ConferenceXP Client, which sports The Edge user interface, and a ConferenceXP Server. The Server includes several components: a "venue server" that manages the "virtual spaces" where users collaborate; an archive server that records and plays back conferences; and a network-diagnostic utility application.

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