Day two of this blog. I heard that in the developers' world, if you know where you want to end up, it's a good idea to work backwards, so today I've looked at eLearning and in particular the Experience API (a.k.a. xAPI) which gives you insights into learning data your students produce. Phew!

It seems you need to capture the data via your web pages, quizzes etc. and send it to a LRS (Learning Record Store) which is linked to a Moodle database typically. I am going down the free route as in education, no one has any money. Anyway, I am keeping up with two courses on amigoscode while working backwards from the xAPI specification documents.

The good news is that it seems doable. A search on the internet "xAPI documentation" takes you to Rustici's xapi.com page, click on "technical/xAPI statements 101" and scroll down to a link to a link "Experience API Specification" to github.com/adlnet/xAPI-Spec/blob/master/xAP... Here the scope of my ambition is mapped out in three documents, and in the introduction it says:

This is a definitive document which describes how the Experience API is to be implemented. It is a technical document authored specifically for individuals and organizations implementing this technology with the intent of such individuals developing interoperable tools, systems and services that are independent of each other and interoperable with each other. from: github.com/adlnet/xAPI-Spec/blob/master/xAP..

All very up in the air so far, but reading on I notice mentioned some knowledge is required of Serialization and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), Representational State Transfer (REST) and HTTP Basic Authentication and oAuth, and HTTP Requests among other things. Nothing beyond the realms of possibility then, and I started studying XMLHttpRequest a few years ago when I was looking at RSS feeds.

Comments invited and appreciated. Has anyone here got any tips for me regarding the things mentioned above? I could write a post to include your suggestions.