is...

for lack of a better term the name I made up today as I was discussing with a colleague how to describe the type of exchange between CMS users that he and I were talking about.

You see he and I are involved in potentially creating a XOOPS-based community site for a major metropolitan Japanese city that wants to create something along the lines of a peer-exchange learning environment for the city's citizens.

Imagine if you will, a site where individuals can get together and set a meeting time where they can all sit together and using a set topic and set materials or online chat or VOIP conferencing (skype) go through a learning experience that does not necessarily have an immediate need for a "teacher" or "leader". Instead, all members would be encouraged to work together on an equal peer standing, working toward each other's learning (not an easy task in japan). All the appointment making, article posting, post and pre live seminar forum discussions could be handled by XOOPS, a custom module could be hacked together if necessary to facilitiate linking everyone through voip or chat. If a certain topic does need an especially informed mem ber of the seminar ("teacher") then that could be a requested option.

So my question to everyone is have you ever in your travels, in any language, seen a site that did something or anything like this? I can imagine that the friend finder and event scheduler modules I have seen before could be cobbled together to do something, but I thought I would ask the XOOPS community at large if any pioneers are out there that I could emulate and learn from.

Thanks everyone.

Jose

Isn't that what you are using now?

Being active on this fourm is an international learning experience.

Well I suppose so...

But imagine a site that specializes in setting up meetings for live chat or voice conferences on specific topics so that four or five people can exchange ideas or directions for actions for an hour or two, live.

On a regular XOOPS site we send a message, hope it stays on the top ten list on the front page long enough for thre relevant people to see it before it falls off the board, and then answer the response about an hour after we last posted.

My colleague and I are looking for something more immediate, something that can appeal to people that don't know what the acronym CMS stands for, something that brings people together specifically to learn from each other not justs on a specific topic. like say ghosts in Britain or hot rodding chevy novas, but on any topic in which others show interest.

These four or five people would set up meeting times for a virtual meeting (or real, whatever) and leanr from each other, beyond the limitations of delayed response systems inherent in a regular cms. Then imagine dozens of these little seminars being conducted everyday on various topics.

If we can develop something like that for this project we can promote its use for other cities (at lest in Japan) that are looking for similar solutions and each project working on XOOPS.

anyone seen anything like that in their travels? And of course I'm willing to learn from something that is not XOOPS based

Jose

You could add a chat program, irc or whatever. The limitations to this are many, the conservations are transient and lost in space forever. With a tool like XOOPS time is not a factor. People can join the conservations at any time. I believe that we are communicating now on what will eclipse the cell phone as a communication medium in the future as more people become aware of it uses and abilities.

I see your point Wardick...

that's why the project will promote the use of all forms of communication, chat, forums, voip, depending on the particular need allowing users to make their choice. Choice is what it's all about.

So has anyone seen anything like that before?

Jose

It sounds like you are requiring something like net conferencing.... multiple users online at once. MSN chat and the like already have something similar to this and the content can be saved in transcript.

I use IRC chat on my site that supports many cahnnels and I see no reason why something like this could not be used in conjuction with other dynamic resources.

I also use Teamspeak which is a voice communication client. XOOPS has an interesting module that shows who is online etc.

The key is to plan and define exactly what you want to achieve and then set out to customise your site.

I'll look up the IRC client and Teamsspeak and post it here.

>>Teamspexk

>>Free IRC

That would be great Carnuke, I appreciate it.

Jose