Future of PLU

After two implementations, PLU is even now considered to be a young application. There are still bugs being reported, and system could do a lot better with more diverse, and printer friendly reporting features.

The user interface has also room for improvement. To get a task done, users sometimes have to go though multiple screens and page refreshes . For instance, managing large number of users, their grades and progress reports currently lacks an intuitive flow. Use of AJAX ( Asynchronous Javascript and XML ) would be a great solution to bring the smooth feel of a desktop application to PLU.

Summing Up

Premier Learning Unit is a customized web application delivering Premier’s content to a large number of schools throughout US and Canada.

Administrators are able to study and review Student progress, using the survey results collected from all the online participants.

This online platform also has the flexibility to contain and deliver other future educational programs developed by premier.

Using Joomla’s template management, the Look & feel of the screens can be customized conforming to each educational program’s visual identity, without having to manipulate and modify the contents.

The Model View Control ( MVC ) Architecture used in PLU 2.0 facilitates future expansion and development of the web application. It also makes it a lot easier to trace and resolve reported software bugs.

In the content development and data entry stage, print and DVD content need to be reviewed and reconstructed to become suitable for an online learning environment. It would be even better if online content development happen separate from content development for Print and DVD, because of the non-linear nature of Information hierarchy.

User adaptation for education software is still slow. UI design for the web requires more time and effort compare to desktop applications and the technology is yet to become more improved as time goes on. On the other end teachers and school administrators are not as comfortable with using technology in the classrooms as they should be. Students on the other hand are very comfortable with using technology as an education tool. This industry gap between UI usability and user’s technology skills will eventually close once the next generation of school teachers with better computer skills take over.

Credits:

Premier Learning Unit web application was created as a team effort. I would like to thank the following people for all the help and support that they have provided for this project:

• Sarah Noble, former Marketing Strategist in charge of Premier Go Program
• John Koetsier, former Technology Solutions Department Manager
• Bernie Van Spronsen, current Technology Solutions Department Manager
• Wim Kanis, Product Development Manager
• Jaime Larson, Marketing
• Santiago Baca, Client Technical Support