LOEL Development Plan

This Plan or Roadmap is organized by the construction and maintenance of Tools to be used by Learners and Peers to support Learners’ Educational Objectives. Development and improvement of LOEL Tools are ongoing once started.

Essential LOEL Software Tools will initially be designed and developed by LOEL staff. The continued design and development of LOEL Software Tools will be transferred to Students and Peers managed by Staff as soon as possible. Eventually most management will also be transferred to Senior Facilitators and staff will step back into a primarily supportive role.

Please refer to the LOEL Tools in conjunction with this document.

Planning for Exponential Growth

This Roadmap is designed to encourage and manage exponential growth. The problems with exponential growth are

• in it’s early phases things grow slower than expected
• in it’s later phases things grow faster than expected
• it’s unpredictable when the transition from slow to fast will occur

The important things about managing an exponential process is to make sure that

• the possibility of early large growth is planned for
• processes tending to damp the exponential growth are identified and eliminated

Because of the first problem with exponential growth, this plan may initially be over-optimistic. We must be prepared for a range of growth rates. Getting the strategy right will maximize the growth rate and minimize disruption.

The markers Q1 - Q6 are intended as stages of a few months each, perhaps as short as a quarter, perhaps somewhat longer.

Q1 - Initiation Phase

• Enrollment of initial (mostly volunteer) development team
• Training of development team
• Initial Design of LRM
• Gathering of initial LRM Content
• Initial Design of Learning Planner
• Initial Design of Learner Profile System
• Initial Design of Self-Assessment Testing System
• Initial Design of Collaborative Learning Management System
• Estimate of resources needed for following two quarters
• –> Initial deployment of Learners’ Resource Map (LRM)
• Design of LRM Version 2

Q2 - First Bootstrapping Phase

• –> Deployment of LRM Version 2
• Signifcant expansion of LRM Content
• –> Deployment of Learner Profile System
• –> Enrollment of more (up to 10) Students
• –> Enrollment of inital (up to 6) Peers
• –> Enrollment of more (up to 6) Volunteer Staff
• –> Prototype of Learning Planner
• –> Liaise with Science Fair Project
• Further Design of Learners’ Resource Map
• Further Design of Self-Assessment Testing System
• Further Design of Collaborative Learning Management System
• Estimate of resources needed for following two quarters
• Design of Learner Profile System Version 2

Q3 - Second Bootstrapping Phase

• Significant expansion of LRM Content
• Deployment of Learner Profile System Version 2
• –> Initial Deployment of Self-Assessment Testing System
• –> Initial Deployment of Collaborative Learning Management System
• –> Enrollment of more (up to 40) Students
• –> Enrollment of more (up to 12) Peers
• –> Liaise with Science Fair Project
• Further Design of Learning Planner
• Further Design of Learner Profile System
• Further Design of Learners’ Resource Map
• Further Design of Self-Assessment Testing System
• Further Design of Collaborative Learning Management System
• Estimate of resources needed for following two quarters

Q4 - First Expansion Phase

• Significant expansion of LRM Content
• Deployment of Learner Profile System Version 3
• –> Initial Deployment of Self-Assessment Testing System
• –> Initial Deployment of Collaborative Learning Management System
• –> Enrollment of more (up to 100) Students
• –> Enrollment of more (up to 24) Peers
• –> Enrollment of more (up to 12) Volunteer Staff
• –> Liaise with Science Fair Project
• –> Second Prototype of Learning Planner
• –> Prototype of Self-Assessment Testing System
• Further Design of Collaborative Learning Management System
• –> Initial Design of Collaborative Multi-Media Environments
• Estimate of resources needed for following two quarters

Q5 - First Transitioning Phase

• –> Move to cloud service provider for bandwidth
• Significant expansion of LRM Content
• –> Initial Deployment of Learning Planner
• –> Initial Deployment of Self-Assessment Testing System
• –> Enrollment of more (up to 400) Students including Science Fair Students
• –> Enrollment of more (up to 50) Peers, mostly from Students
• Replacement of Staff as needed, especially from Peers
• Further Design of Self-Assessment Testing System
• Further Design of Collaborative Learning Management System
• –> Prototype of Collaborative Multi-Media Environments
• –> Students and Peers take on some development tasks
• Estimate of resources needed for following two quarters

Q6 - Second Expansion Phase

• –> Development increasingly done by Students and Peers
• Significant expansion of LRM Content
• Deployment of Learning Planner Version 2
• Deployment of Self-Assessment Testing System Version 2
• CLMS Merger with Collaborative Multi-Media Environments
• Deployment of Collaborative Muti-Media Learning Environment
• –> Targetted Enrollment of more (thousands of) Students
• –> Enrollment of more (hundreds of) Peers, mostly from Students
• –> Enrollment of more (up to 100) Staff, mostly from Peers
• –> We should be prepared for at least 100,000 unofficial Learners!
• Further Design of Self-Assessment Testing System
• Further Design of Collaborative Multi-Media Learning Environment
• Estimate of resources needed for following two quarters