"K 12 instant messaging tool" invented by flashuser

First, the development sources and future prospects of instant messaging

When I first saw our instant messaging tool, I thought it was a very good idea, and I had a hunch that it was a solution to the "difficulty" of the current educational software. Through further understanding of other similar software and software development in other industries, I have strengthened my own ideas. I believe that in the future educational software market, instant messaging software will be popularized and accepted by the public.

Second, the advantages of instant messaging

The core of instant messaging is "user information communication", "product jump" and "product information feedback".

☆ "User information exchange" refers to the functions of registered users such as chatting and leaving messages. This function has been accepted by the public, such as MSN and QQ, but our instant messaging is different from MSN, and the key is "educational characteristics". Its user base is relatively a closed group, limited to a school or an educational institution. And instant messaging can well limit the scope of users.

☆ "product jump", you can easily jump to other products for access. This is based on the fact that the user we logged in is a registered user of the basic platform, and the registered user has the right to use the product. Once they log in successfully, they can jump to other products, which saves the trouble of logging in the product again and greatly reduces the difficulty of use.

☆ "Product information feedback", through the integration with other products (such as notification, work arrangement, message sending and receiving), software feedback can be directly sent to instant messaging to realize centralized display of software information.

☆ "User information communication" is mainly to unify user management; "Unified user" management is the basis of realizing "information exchange"; "Product jump" and "product information feedback" are the basis of realizing product interoperability. These are the two core functions of the basic platform. Therefore, it can be said that instant messaging must be built on the "basic platform". Without the basic platform, the above functions cannot be completed.

Thirdly, the future competitive situation of instant messaging is prospected.

No matter how good a product is, it will inevitably be imitated and will encounter competition. What factors do you need to imitate? What if the entry threshold is raised?

If you want to imitate instant messaging, you must complete "product integration". "Product integration" is mainly divided into "unified user management" and "product jump".

We assume that instant messaging is managed by independent users, and there should be no problem in communication between users. MSN should be like this. But if you want to visit other products, you can't get personalized feedback from them! Because users of instant messaging and users of various products are two sets of users, information cannot be communicated. There is also product jump, the core of which is the integration between products, that is, how to put several different products together to realize automatic login.

It can be said that there is no "product integration", and the instant messaging tool is just a chat tool, which can't realize "product jump" and "product information feedback", so the new development is basically meaningless. So the basic platform is the foundation of instant messaging. Without a basic platform, instant messaging cannot achieve its due value.

It should be quick for others to imitate the instant messaging program itself, because after all, instant messaging chat tools are open source. In order to realize "product information jump", we must complete product integration (like our big platform), at least our company's product integration. To complete product integration, if it is our company's products, it is generally easier to do so. But if we want to integrate the products of other companies, the key is "the scientificity of integration standards" and "the influence of the company". First of all, the standards should be scientific and not flawed, otherwise how can others integrate? Second, the company must have a certain influence, otherwise why should others integrate with you? To complete "product information feedback", we must complete a series of "feedback software", such as "notification" and other software, or transform related software, otherwise instant messaging will not be able to achieve interoperability. It should be possible to complete a series of "feedback software", but in our experience, it will take at least six months to a year to do it well. If it is a start-up software company, the time will be longer. Software is a complex project, and there should be no problems in requirements analysis, framework design, functional design, code writing, art interface, testing and even production. Moreover, if we want to do it well, we must exceed our existing software and the speed of updating our software. As far as the influence of the company is concerned, I don't need to say this. Generally, unknown companies can toss and turn for years. At least I can stop some small companies, unlike the resource pool, "any company can do it (it's a big deal to copy all your resources)"

It can be said that instant messaging is a software with a certain threshold. To make such a product, we must first solve the above two key problems: technical strength and company influence.

Although there is a certain threshold, no one can't do it. If we avoid homogenization competition like a resource pool, we should also start from these two aspects. On the one hand, we should constantly improve the quality of products, make them easier to use and solve more problems. Second, vigorously promote the scope of use, so that more people can really use and accept this software, and at the same time unite more valuable peer enterprises for common development. Only when this standard is widely recognized can it truly form a dominant position.

Fourth, vigorously promote instant messaging and package it into a plan.

In view of the above analysis, we should vigorously promote instant messaging. It is suggested that the company package the "desktop office system" into a scheme, because if it is distributed software, people often see a single instant message (maybe it is MSN or something) and notification, without an overall concept. Although we have an overall solution at present, the goal is not concentrated, which may affect the effect and is not conducive to promotion. For example, only push the basic platform, although others know its purpose, but can not see the obvious effect. It would be much better if we avoided it and pushed something practical. This scheme focuses on solving the problems of "information communication" and "software usability", and I believe it should have a good response.

Overview of K 12 Second Generation Education Network Solution

In order to make it easier for you to experience the unique charm of the "second generation" and understand the product and enterprise situation of K 12, please log in to the product exhibition center of K 12, and all the products of the "second generation" are waiting for you! Login address:.

I. Wonderful, magical and incredible works

According to statistics, from the "school-to-school communication" project in 2000, by the end of 2003, about 200 metropolitan area networks and 26,000 school education networks had been built in China. However, in most areas and schools, there is a problem, that is, it is easy to build a network but difficult to use it. This greatly restricts the application of educational network in education, teaching and management, and greatly reduces the investment benefit of huge network equipment, hardware and other infrastructure.

On the one hand, "the difficulty in using the Internet" is a problem of the teaching concept and the application level of information technology, on the other hand, it is also related to the development level and technical ability of domestic educational software. Since the mid-1990s, some educational software enterprises have started to develop all kinds of software, but they have not been able to solve the problems of low software capability maturity model, large deviation from users' needs, incompatibility with users' usage habits, mutual independence and inability to integrate software. These problems also cause users to complain when using the software, which can't meet the real needs of users.

It can be said that the application software level has not been improved, which greatly limits the improvement of the application level of educational informatization. However, in 2004, the emergence of "the second generation campus network/metropolitan area network solution" is quietly changing the whole situation.

"The Second Generation Campus Network/MAN Software Application Solution" is an educational network software solution with advanced concept, advanced technology, perfect functions and rich applications, which can greatly improve the application level of campus network and MAN (hereinafter referred to as "Education Network") and push the educational network software solution to a new height.

"The Second Generation Campus Network/MAN Solution" (hereinafter referred to as "the second generation") was developed by K 12 after four years of research and experience in campus network and MAN. It has unparalleled advantages in function and technology, which is the highest achievement of educational software development in the past 20 years and the "peak work" of educational informatization.

After watching the "second generation" demonstration, many education committees and school users felt an unprecedented impact and spoke highly of it. Some users commented, "I didn't expect such a product", "beyond everyone's imagination", "turning our original sporadic imagination into a beautiful reality", "far ahead of the same industry level" and "very fresh".

All the above are real comments from users, without any fiction or exaggeration. So, what kind of products and solutions can leave such a good impression on users? Let me give you an example first.

Case: Desktop information terminal changes the application mode of network software.

Figure SEQ Figure \ \ * Arabic1K12+02 Instant Messaging software is used as the desktop information terminal of each user.

The above picture shows the "K 12 Instant Messaging" software provided for each user in the "Second Generation". Each user only needs to turn on the computer, and it will automatically run this software as the desktop information terminal of each user-in fact, it is the entrance of the whole network application. In this software, three functions are provided.

One is the information sending and chatting functions similar to MSN and QQ, as shown below. Of course, this is not unusual.

Figure SEQ Figure \ * Arabic 2 Instant Messaging Chat Function

Second, the "product list" function. Any application module authorized by the administrator to the user will be displayed here (as shown below), and the user will automatically jump to the module by clicking the module name. Please note that the most important thing here is not to "jump", but to pass the user's login information at the same time, so that the user does not need to log in again at all, and the module automatically recognizes the user's identity.

Figure SEQ Figure \ * Arabic 3 "Product List" function

Third, the application software information receiving function. Instant messaging can automatically receive messages sent by some application software to users and display them on the desktop. Therefore, users don't need to open the page or refresh the page frequently to see whether there are new notifications or new emails. The following picture is what you see after receiving "1 new notice".

Figure SEQ Figure \ * Arabic 4 Jump from instant messaging to the corresponding module to view the new notification.

It can be said that this software has completely changed the application mode of network software, which will bid farewell to the browser and set off a revolution in the application mode of network software! There are many innovative applications and excellent software like this in the "second generation".

If you pay a little attention, you may notice that in the above case, there are actually many applications involved. Users can jump between products according to their own wishes, and they can also transfer necessary information between products. In fact, in the whole "second generation" software, the integration level is very high. Everything is so natural and smooth that users don't even notice it, such as the jump between products, the transfer of authority, and the mutual transmission of information between products. No matter what function the user needs, everything happens at the user's fingertips.

The whole "second generation" system architecture and various software modules have devoted K 12 years of hard work, symbolizing the new height of domestic educational informatization application and being the "pinnacle work" of educational informatization. They will effectively promote the improvement of the application level of educational informatization.

Second, the core concept and overall advantages of the "second generation"

Including the aforementioned software K 12 instant messaging, there are nearly 30 application software modules in the second generation campus network/metropolitan area network solution, which provide very rich functions and features. But in order to understand how the "second generation" is so advanced, humanized, convenient and practical, it is necessary for us to understand the "second generation" as a whole first.

(a) Core concepts of the "second generation" initiative

On the whole, the core concept of the "second generation" has three points: integrated application, open interface and leading value. Understand these three points, and you will understand the unparalleled advantages brought by the "second generation".

L integrated application, closely related: all products are fully integrated through the "basic platform", unified users, unified authority, unified product entrance, unified product management entrance, and information transmission between products. It can be said that "the second generation campus network/metropolitan area network solution" makes so many products so closely linked for the first time, forming a real "solution".

Problems before the "second generation": Many schools, especially those with earlier informationization, may have purchased products from many manufacturers. But what often happens is that even the products developed by the same manufacturer have little to do with each other.

Therefore, there are often 10 products, so you need to remember 10 different entrances, users need to register 10 times, and users need to log in again every time they use a product, not to mention that the information in this product cannot be transmitted to that product.

From the administrator's point of view, the installation of 10 products is different, and conflicts often occur during installation. When managing, remember that there are 10 different entrances, and even the account password is completely different.

In particular, "product integration" and "product combination" are completely different concepts. "Combination" simply lists several products together, while "integration" solves the problem of information transmission between software from the bottom mechanism, thus achieving the purpose of "integration".

L Open interface, easy integration: The "basic platform" adopts international standard WebService technology, provides a completely open standard interface, and can easily integrate third-party products. Educational network software will enter the era of "application integration" and "unification of basic platforms" from now on. No matter which manufacturer's products, they can be easily integrated with the "basic platform" to form a user-oriented integrated application.

Problems before the "second generation": The above problems are more serious in the software developed by different manufacturers. Some software vendors have solved the problem of unified user and login among their own software, but due to unscientific technical route, these functions are realized through coding and background database, which is not compatible with other vendors' products.

Only by developing high-tech software with open system architecture, adopting international standard technology and providing standard programming interface can we solve the "openness" problem, which requires long-term technical accumulation.

L Value-oriented, application-oriented: "Second Generation Campus Network/MAN Solution" integrates the strength of the whole industry, provides schools with rich and excellent application software that can produce great use value, and greatly improves the situation that the educational network is "difficult to use". Many of these softwares are innovative products with high knowledge content and high technology content, which greatly enhances the use value of educational network software.

The problem before the "second generation": a company can only develop a few high-quality products in its own field-even giant companies like IBM and Microsfot. This is the objective law of the software industry.

But before the emergence of the "second generation", in order to meet the diverse needs of users, manufacturers can only develop "all" products themselves-obviously, the quality of such products cannot be guaranteed. The emergence of the "second generation" enables us to focus on "application demand" and "use value" and integrate the best products in the industry to provide services to users.

Not only technically, K 12, as a leader in the field of educational informatization, has developed many innovative products with important use value and favorable comments from users through solid research on user needs for several years. These products are completely put forward and refined by users, which have universal significance and can greatly improve work efficiency, and have been verified by some users.

In fact, whether technically or functionally, the whole "second generation" actually has only one focus: the "use value" of users.

Whether it is integrating applications, opening interfaces or leading value, it is initiated by the "second generation". It has greatly improved the technical level and application level of educational information technology, far exceeding other software or so-called "solutions" in theory, technology and application, and is the "pinnacle" of educational informatization.

(b) Other core concepts proposed by K12.

1, the "four-center model" of online education application

The second generation also inherited the four-center model of "teaching, resources, communication and management" initiated by K 12 in 200 1.

Whether it is a metropolitan area network or a campus network, its application needs are many. Whether from the user's understanding of educational network application or in the process of product development, it is necessary to summarize the needs of educational network application.

200 1, K 12 put forward for the first time that "educational network software should provide four functions: teaching, resources, communication and management", and developed dozens of application functions according to these four functions.

After more than two years of practice, these four requirements have long been recognized by experts, users and other software companies, and have become the requirements standards for educational network applications, and even adopted by the documents of the Ministry of Education.

The educational network should provide comprehensive and practical support for the teaching, management, daily office and internal and external communication of the school. It should have the teaching function of preparing lessons for teachers, learning function of students, educational administration function, administrative management function, educational equipment (including books) management function, resource information function and internal and external communication function.

-Excerpted from the Guiding Opinions on the Construction of Primary and Secondary Education Networks issued by the General Office of the Ministry of Education.

Exchange; connect

operate

resources

teaching

Figure SEQ Figure \ * Arabic 5 Education Network should provide four functions.

(1) Communication (information release and transmission)

Five, the construction of educational network infrastructure makes the network of all schools interconnected, and information transmission between schools and education committees and between schools can be easily realized.

V In Education Network, through the portal, you can show the basic situation and characteristics of your area/school to the outside world, and also realize the function of releasing and quickly transmitting internal information.

V Education Network can provide advanced network technology applications such as e-mail, personal homepage space, etc. for all personnel in the local area/school, and provide basic conditions for information exchange in the network era.

The virtual community in the V Education Network will provide a good soil for various teaching experiments in various regions/schools, and save the problems of high investment and repeated construction by the Education Bureau and schools themselves.

(2) Management

Five, the education committee/school to implement electronic management, is the performance of e-government in education.

V Electronic management means such as school management, student status management, teacher file management and student achievement management will greatly improve management efficiency.

The data in the management system of V school can be directly transmitted to the management system of the Education Committee through the network interface, which saves the original complicated and repetitive work.

V Parents can learn about their children's learning, school introduction, teachers' related information and other services by logging in from the Education Committee/school management system, and can communicate with teachers conveniently.

V Students can learn about their homework and study from the Education Committee/school management system.

(3) Resources

All kinds of resources of V Education Network can provide rich resource support for teachers' lesson preparation, teaching and research, and students' study in and out of class.

V through the education network, "one machine can be installed and accessed everywhere" can be realized.

V through the resource application system, you can get resources from the resource library at will, and realize the network courseware use environment.

V through the resource management system, you can easily manage resources, such as click-through rate, evaluation and so on.

V schools can also continuously enrich resources and environment through their own construction.

(4) Teaching

On the basis of co-construction and sharing of resources, V can easily realize network lesson preparation and teaching, and improve teaching efficiency.

Because the education network is a broadband network, it can realize the functions of video teaching programs on demand, live broadcast or broadcast of distance teachers' lectures, and easily realize distance education for students and teachers.

V can realize the network examination system, and students' scores will automatically enter all relevant evaluation systems, which provides a convenient way for students' self-inquiry and various statistical work in the school.

V provides an environment and platform for students to carry out autonomous learning, collaborative learning and research-based learning on the Internet.

2. "Four types of personnel" in online education application services

The education network construction project is a large-scale comprehensive education informatization project, and its construction goal is the education information port of the education commission/school. 200 1, K 12 first proposed that education network should provide services for "four types of personnel".

5. Administrative personnel: enable them to make full use of the networked office environment, handle a large amount of educational information quickly and conveniently, improve work efficiency and reduce work intensity.

Teacher V: Not only provides them with a communication environment to communicate with the outside world, but also provides them with a platform for online teaching and resource sharing, so that they can share ideas and resources in a wider range, thus improving the teaching quality and level;

V students: with the support of the network, learn the textbooks carefully prepared by the subject teachers with brand-new learning modes and means, and comprehensively improve their own quality and ability;

V Parents: Build a communication bridge between the education committee/school and the family through the network, so that parents can know the students' performance in time, and the school can get feedback from parents in time.

In 2002, K 12 took the lead in establishing four identities of "administrator, teacher, student and parent" in "K 12 Education Cyberport". Each role can have different permission characteristics, provide different entrances and perform different operations. This is the first time that the concept of "identity" appears in educational network software.

K 12 can realize the innovation in theory, application and technology, which stems from its accumulation in educational informatization since 2000, and benefits from its research on the combination of educational informatization theory and practice for many years, its understanding and grasp of customer needs, and its advanced technology and system architecture in educational network construction for many years.

Third, the core of the overall maturity of the "solution"-the degree of integration.

What is a "solution"

As users, we often hear the word "solution". So what is the "solution"? How is it different from the "products" or "software" we can usually see? As a user, can't you solve the problem by buying some products? Why do we need a "solution"?

First of all, we need to establish an idea that a software is valuable if it can solve a problem or a class of problems well. In short: good software only needs to meet a real demand. And generally speaking, whether from the perspective of system architecture or modular programming, if a software provides many functions at the same time, there is a great possibility that it is not a really excellent software that can solve problems. Therefore, users can purchase one or several softwares to solve corresponding practical problems and improve efficiency.

However, users can't always have only one or several requirements, and may often have to solve multiple problems at the same time. As mentioned above, it is basically difficult to solve multiple problems with one software. Even if it is realized, because the system architecture is too complex and huge, the technology "internal friction" is too large, the development cost rises sharply, the performance degradation is unstable, and the future upgrade and maintenance cost will be very high. In the IT industry, no company will adopt this method.

So what should we do? Since software should remain independent, can we integrate multiple softwares together? This idea led to the birth of the concept of "solution"-the overall solution.

For the "solution", its main content is different from the specific product. Specific products focus on whether the needs of a certain aspect can be best met-this is the core of product maturity; The solution focuses on the "degree of integration" between software, and whether "all requirements" can be best met by "a set of software"-this is the core of the maturity of the solution.

It is conceivable that if we simply "assemble" several softwares, the inconsistency of interface styles is a minor problem, but the fundamental problems are the problems related to different system environments, the conflict of installation files or databases, the inability to share data, the inability to share permissions, and the inability to transfer information to each other.

Therefore, a truly excellent solution should not only have mature, stable and powerful products, but also have a high degree of integration between these products. Although each product is independently developed, users should feel as if they are using a product in terms of installation, use, interface and management.

For example, we can think that Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access and Frontpage in Office are an excellent "office software solution". Because its various products are excellent, it can better meet the needs of users on one hand; More importantly, data can be copied and pasted between various softwares, and even files can be directly identified-for example, Excel can directly identify Access files, Word can directly output web files that can be identified by Frontpage, and all softwares have common components such as Office tools and clip art.. However, we can't think that WPS and Excel are a set of solutions.

(B) the integration of the first generation of educational network solutions

As mentioned earlier, in addition to the maturity of the software itself, "degree of integration" is the core of the maturity of the solution.

In the educational network solution, "integration" is also crucial: among so many products, do users only need to register once? Do users need to log in once to access anywhere? Is there a unified entrance for users to contact products? ..... If these functions can't be realized, then the product of 10 needs users to register 10 times and log in 10 times, which is incredible for practical application. Therefore, only a set of software that can provide unified users, unified login and unified product entrance can qualify as a "solution", otherwise it is just a "patchwork" of some software.

The "patchwork" scheme appeared, and it has been used until 200 1 since the end of 1990s. At that time, the technical level of educational software was still relatively backward. It just installs several kinds of software together and puts the software icons together in the form of links. It seems that all software is integrated, but in fact, all software is still independent. Software installation, user management, authority and authentication are all independent of each other, not to mention data transfer between software. So it can't be called a real solution.

By 2002, K 12 launched the first real educational network solution in China: "K 12 Education Cyberport", which solved the problem of "integration" among various products. K 12 realizes data sharing among products through a unified "basic platform", and the development of various products has also been coordinated and integrated. K 12 spent more than a year integrating all its products into the "basic platform", or all the products of K 12 were developed on the basis of the "basic platform". In this way, through the mechanism of "basic platform", the functions of unified users, unified login and unified product entrance among all products are realized.

However, it also has many shortcomings: the "tight coupling" mode is adopted between products and the basic platform, which is realized by reusing the underlying database level and code level, so the independence of each product is greatly affected, and the complexity of the whole solution is greatly increased, which will seriously affect the performance of each product and the whole solution. In addition, due to this tightly coupled method, it is difficult to integrate the products of multiple companies by writing the same database and cooperating with the codes of other products. "K 12 Education Cyberport" is a typical first-generation solution. Now many solutions on the market are also at this stage, even just software platter.

(C) the second generation campus network/MAN solution integration

As the creator of the "first generation" educational network solution, K 12 clearly understands its advantages and disadvantages. In 2003, we began to research and develop a new generation of software technology, and successfully developed the "second generation campus network/metropolitan area network solution".

On the basis of the successful experience of "the first generation" adopting "basic platform" to realize product integration, "the second generation" adopted "loose coupling" method. Data and information exchange (XML-RPC WebService) between "basic platform" and products and between products is completely carried out through standard protocols. Therefore, each product and the basic platform can be very independent when developing, and only communicate with the basic platform or other products when exchanging data, which greatly reduces the complexity of the whole system and enables "third-party" products to be easily converted and smoothly connected. In the process of operation, each product can be self-contained, and all the pressure will not be concentrated on the basic platform, which is a very good "system architecture".

The proposal of the "second generation" also solved a problem that was difficult to solve in the past. Generally speaking, in order to meet different needs at different stages, a school will choose a variety of products from multiple manufacturers to form an educational network software application platform. This in itself is beyond reproach. However, when these softwares were actually installed and used, all these educational networks found a problem: how to integrate the products of so many different developers, different development languages, different databases and even different operating systems? Because many companies are involved, it is difficult to solve this problem.

In the development of the "second generation", the researchers pointed out that the new generation technology must allow the "third party" products to link smoothly when developing. Furthermore, it is proposed that all products developed by K 12 should be treated as "third party" products, and the new basic platform must provide standard interfaces, so that all products can realize unified users and systems only through interface calls.