Volume Two - Academic Conferences

2.2 LePress
Sónia Sousa et al.
Personal Learning Environments (PLE) tend to lead to the facilitation of learner-based constructivist
learning processes and tend to promote the usage of open resources, and Web 2.0 tools in opposition
to the teacher-centric tactics enabled by typical, Web 1.0 associated LMS.
Blogs it is other so-called Web 2.0 tools that prove to be a suitable building block of more learnercentered
learning environments. And it has become, especially in the last five years, one of the major
trends in the domain of technology-enhanced learning.
Whereas, this trends towards blogging, clearly relates to the simplicity of publishing, reading and
discussing blogs’ mechanisms. We still miss relevant functionalities in these tools, which hinder their
systematic adoption in educational settings.
While many teaching and learning tasks are easy to implement in a blog-based PLE, this type of tools
still lacks some of the important features that made traditional Learning Management Systems
efficient for both teachers and learners.
For instance, it is quite difficult to manage assignment related workflows and to promote semantic
data exchange between multiple blog instances.
LePress 1 is a learning flow management extension for WordPress blog engine (Tomberg, Laanpere
and Lamas, 2010). LePress is software plug-in for popular WordPress blogging platform. As its name
implies (LePress is acronym for Learning WordPress) LePress is intended for adding specific learning
functionalities into WordPress. It main feature is on its design, that is focus on provide a usable
Course Coordination Space which provides a natural connection between formal university courses
and PLE.
LePress can be installed on multiuser WordPress installations where all existing users can get
benefits of participating in coursework. But main unique feature of LePress is a possibility to connect
in framework of learning courses the independently installed instances of WordPress blogs. This
allows an owner of external WordPress blog who already uses it as e-Portfolio or as a reflection tool
to instantly join into the courses announced in another blog, he or she can install LePress plug-in and
immediately register herself in open courses.
LePress is based on three main guidelines: (1) ensuring teachers and learner’s a natural and simple
learning flow; (2) ensuring basic features sets, while leaving extended functionality transparent and
ready to use when needed; (3) enabling maximum archive features by ensuring a blog architecture
reuse; (4) or ensuring that no feature is implemented if doesn’t carry substantial added value.
It general architecture, see figure 1, includes three layers: the User, The Learning Flow, and the
Learning Content Layers.
Users interact with their blogs on User Layer. In case if user activity has any course-related load, it
begins to be controlled by LePress.
LePress acts on Learning Flow layer by connecting separately distributed instances of WordPress
installations. LePress provides solutions for interblog communications and accompanying of blog
artefacts like posts, comments and categories with specific learning-related data.
On the down Learning Content Layer arranged resource providers. They supply media for using it in
blog posts to make learning process more reach and interactive.
LePress non-destructive workflow approach for blog users, allows the users to continue work in their
blogs as usual, posting messages and commenting other’s posts. Additionally, LePress helps
teachers to maintain learning oriented tasks like course categories and learning posts and
assessments.
1 Available at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/lepress-teacher/
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