Sector(s)
Team Members
Project Team
in addition to the project team:
Alexey Sivets
Fred de Jong
Tom Roozendaal
Visit the site
Visit the siteOrganizations Involved
Community contributions
https://www.drupal.org/project/ckeditor5_embedded_content was partly developed for this project.
Several patches will be provided for various projects such as CKEditor, Consumers, Decoupled Router, NextJs, OpenID Connect, Quiz and Webform.
Coming up with and preparing engaging lessons often takes (too) much time. The new ELO platform offers flexible teaching materials that can be used at any desired moment, allowing teachers to teach more efficiently and save time.
Moreover, it allows teachers to create, distribute and re-use their own teaching materials, lessons and quizzes, tests and exams as well.
Already in the pre-corona times both publishers were rolling out their online methods successfully. The current digital era has only spurred demand for off-the-shelf online teaching methods.
The new application provides both publishers a platform to distribute their methods and scale their business.
About the project
Support the business of two publishers:
The application functions as the backbone for the business of two publishers, who are distributing digital teaching methods to secondary and MBO schools in The Netherlands.
Support the mission of the two publishers:
Supporting their goal to prepare students for the world of tomorrow.
One tool that supports all functions required in easy to use and innovative ways including:
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Portfolio creation and presentation
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Perform school class lessons and tests
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Make your own lessons and tests
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Easy grading of tests and class room evaluations
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Easy feedback to students
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Support practical education, including off-line options
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Clear dashboards with insight into progress for students
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Place for sources and manuals
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Teacher-student communication
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Management functions for teachers, such as composing groups and classes
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Make it easy to order additional lesson materials
Innovation
The ELO platform introduced innovative features to education, such as advanced content management, accessible student portfolios, and direct teacher support.
Support different types of teaching and feedback:
The new ELO platform was built to support all types of teaching, testing and feedback. This means it supports precise questions in tests or exams as well as contextual questions asking for opinions or experiences. Answers can be given in precise manner (e.g. multiple choice answer) or as story-based feedback (e.g. an opinion).
Grading and feedback can be given in grades (e.g. 1-10), smilies, impression (e.g. G for Good, U for Uitmuntend/Excellent) or even a positive checkmark (a so-called ‘krul’).
All this gives unsurpassed flexibility to teachers and students.
Flexibility to incorporate other types of education:
Another type of education that is supported through the tool is project based learning, based on design thinking methods. The tool guides a team of students in a step-by-step plan, until they hand in the end result. Teachers can use the ELO to coach the teams and provide feedback.
Online ánd off-line in the mix!
Even though the ELO is a digital tool it allows a mix of online and offline to support the needs of vocational schools (vakscholen). For example: an assignment to design and create a wooden chair. Obviously, the chair itself is not a digital asset. But the process of making and the end result can be filmed or photographed and added to the assignment through the QR code provided by the application.
Usability and Design
The application was designed to meet Gen-Z and Gen Alpha expectations, creating an application that is easy to use and navigate as self-evident (no manuals required).
The ELO platform was designed with a focus on user-friendliness and appealing design, contributing to teacher and user satisfaction.
Support non-functionals such as security and scalability.
The application is used in schools and by students and teachers. It contains important and personal data, that needs to be kept secure. Coding standards therefore include privacy-by-design and security-by-design.
The application needs to work for a lot of schools and students at the same time. Both software and hardware architecture were tailored for this.
White label
Create an application that can be used by other publishers of educational materials, based on a white label version of the software. As one of the end results of the project the white label version is now available for reselling.
Strategic
In essence, the ELO project has made a positive contribution to education and serves as an example of successful collaboration, and innovation. Teachers now save more time in lesson preparation, translating into more individual attention for students.
Why Drupal was chosen
Transforming Education through Collaborative Innovation
In close collaboration with Dubbelklik and Kunst Uit Het Vuistje, leading educational publishers, Finalist has developed a groundbreaking Electronic Learning Environment (ELO). This ELO not only surpassed Dubbelklik previous platform but also optimized Kunst Uit Het Vuistje's digital CKV (Culture and Art Education) method. The challenge was to create a flexible and user-friendly platform that would meet the needs of both publishers while providing white-label solutions for other publishing houses and educational institutions.
The new ELO platform has been designed by and for teachers, with a primary focus on usability, security, and the didactic methods. All teaching materials, assessments, and progress data are easily accessible and organized. This is made possible through features such as effortless content viewing, handling, and assessment, swift lesson preparation, customization options, and efficient search capabilities for students and materials. Furthermore, the platform includes a student portfolio and provides direct access to instructional guides to support teachers.
The result is an advanced system that empowers teachers to perform their tasks more effectively. The new ELO platform seamlessly integrates with collaborative environments and meets the technical requirements of the modern era. Its aim is to support teachers in their daily work by providing them with the tools they need to make lessons more engaging and efficient. This project represents a significant leap forward in the digital education landscape and is pioneering in how it transforms both the way teachers teach and students learn.
Technology
The application was developed with Drupal on the back-end and NextJS on the front-end, in an agile project with both publishers acting as product owners and Finalist as development partner.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
The application support different types of teaching and feedback. This means it supports precise questions in tests or exams as well as contextual questions asking for opinions or experiences. Answers can be given in precise manner (e.g. multiple choice answer) or as story-based feedback (e.g. an opinion).
Where one publisher mostly worked with the ‘Quiz’ module (precise questions), the other one made extensive use of the ‘Webform’ module for lessons and tests (contextual questions). Both modules ‘do their own thing’ when it comes to the storage and presentation of the content involved. In the presentation though, we needed a uniform structure for lessons and all the content and insights surrounding it, such as reviews, feedback and progress. Therefore, we created a unifying API so the frontend could easily consume both these modules in a uniform way. The API acts as a data source for the front-end, but is at the same time an abstraction layer for the underlying variety of modules.
