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The XOOPS Projects has released Alpha 2 of its upcoming XOOPS 2.5.0 release.

This new release a major redesign of the Administration module which has been AJAX-ed with jQuery. Some of the new features are breaking a new ground for XOOPS, like the visual placement of blocks, and we're sure that the users will love them. The 2.5.0 release will be definitely the most innovative XOOPS  release in years.

Some of the major improvements/additions include new Help System for Admin and modules, MySQL Dump function, Tables Maintenance and Cache Clean-up in Maintenance, new Redirect messaging system, and Column sorting in tables. 

The focus on improved usability resulted in more visual administration using drag & drop, among them module ordering and block placement, and direct access to files for editing and folder management via a new File Manager. 

The developers also did a lot of code refactoring to use the latest XOOPS API. 

You can see a video with overview of the main new features on YouTube 

For more info and download links, please visit XOOPS Site

There have been a number of pretty cool things happening at Konductor recently:

• Web Designer Mag published a really good tutorial and review of Konductor, calling it "The perfect platform for designers to create, and non-designers to edit." Check out Konductor's press page to read what they had to say.
• The Konductor Extension for Dreamweaver was recently released on the Adobe Dreamweaver Exchange, and—in addition to being the featured extension—it just exceeded 20,000 downloads!
• New content has been published on the blog showing how easy it is to mash up Konductor and Flickr to create a slick gallery on your website, plus a new video has been posted on YouTube showing the Firefox website being cut on to the system.

XOOPS Projects is enjoying an impressive increase in popularity, measured by number of new users, as well as new developers joining the XOOPS Team. This is confirmed by Alexa.com, showing a very strong 2009 increase in percent of global Internet users who visit www.xoops.org

Thanks to the influx of new developers, XOOPS Project has been able to release updates to its CMS on a monthly basis since August 2008, and to start parallel development of new versions. While one team was focusing on the maintenance of 2.4.x series, another team from France and Switzerland worked on the XOOPS 2.5.x series, with main focus on redesigning the Admin with jQuery. At the same time, the work continues on revising architecture for the new XOOPS 3.0 version, led by Dr. Taiwen Jiang, the Project Leader. 

The XOOPS 2.5 Alpha has been released on February 1, 2010, only one week after the 2.4.4 Final release

Selecting and organizing the material

If you're like most instructors, you love your subject and the idea of sharing information gives you great satisfaction. However, you have probably noticed that it's easy to overload your students, or to give them materials in a way that tends to confuse them. How can you avoid overloading and confusing your students?

One of the most effective ways to do so is to make sure that you base your selections of instructional materials on course outcomes and on the learning objectives for each unit. Keep in mind what you'd like your students to be able to do after they complete the course. What is the basic, enduring knowledge they will take with them after the course is over? What kind of fundamental change do you want to occur in terms of the student's abilities? What kind of new skills will they be able to perform?

Once you answer these questions, you will have a list of learning outcomes. Keep them in mind as you select the instructional material you wish to use in your course.

It is often convenient to develop a map or a diagram that connects your learning outcomes with the course materials and the assessments you will use. Consider what you want your students to learn, and how you'd like them to perform. Also, you shape the sequence you will build and how you'll present the materials.

It is often convenient to develop a map or a diagram that connects your learning outcomes with the course materials and the assessments you will use. Consider what you want your students to learn, and how you'd like them to perform. Also, you shape the sequence you will build and how you'll present the materials.

Using forums to present your material

We'll start with an approach that is very easy to implement, which is ideal if you're just getting started and need a solution that would be good for all kinds of e-learning, including mobile learning and guided independent study.

The fast paced world of business requires you to move with it and keep up with the demands of customers who want everything immediately. This means that everything in your office must (if possible) be automated in order for your staff to act swiftly and efficiently.

One of the aspects of your business that you need to invest in to improve processes is document management. Manual ranking and filing of paper documents is time consuming and many business these days invest in electronic document management to help them efficiently manage their files and in turn act on customer demands speedily.

Electronic document management systems, such as those provided by Invu, is not only about instantly retrieving information but it also allows you to text search the actual body of a document together with the title. And what’s even better about it is that it actually highlights the search terms you need so you can go directly to the information you want-therefore saving time spent searching for documents especially when your in a hurry.