Old flagship found (was: Language learning stacks)

[Wilhelm Sanke]

On July, 11, 2010 I had written:

> Kevin (our CEO) had been enthusiastic about the stack and called it to 
> be something like "the coming flagship of Runtime Revolution". This 
> also points to the fact that at least at that time the Rev team had a 
> genuine interest in educational software.


I have done some research in the meantime. I so far could not find a 
statement from Kevin containing the word "flagship", but I have the 
distinct impression that it could be there somewhere.

The educational tools in question where called "Preceptor Tools" and the 
author was Stephen R. Messimer. They are intended to be a general 
"courseware builder", not restricted to language software.

Here is the announcement from Sept 30, 2003, also containing a quote 
from Kevin:

> Stephen Messimer
> Tue, 30 Sep 2003 08:19:28 -0700
> Hi All,
>
> This is just to let you know that the Public Beta of PreceptorTools 
> has been release and is available for download. :-)
> =====================
> For Immediate Release
>
> PreceptorTools Public Beta Released
> The New Way to Develop Courseware - In Minutes!
>
>
> Edinburgh, Scotland, 25th September, 2003
>
> Messimer Computing, Inc. and Runtime Revolution Ltd. today jointly 
> announced the release of the PreceptorTools public beta. With the 
> PreceptorTools courseware builder, teachers, trainers and students can 
> develop training modules, instructional aids, and presentations for 
> every major platform in minutes, without any programming! Beginners 
> can get started right away, while experienced Revolution developers 
> can use Revolution's rich feature set to customize PreceptorTools for 
> their own needs.
>
> Steve Messimer, President of Messimer Computing, said, "With its 
> easy-to use ready-made lessons, PreceptorTools is perfect for busy 
> teachers. The prebuilt navigation aids, quizzes, and exams let 
> teachers focus on delivering educational solutions, without worrying 
> about how to code them." Messimer added, "I chose Revolution because 
> of its unrivaled ease of use and power. PreceptorTools taps that power 
> for teachers and courseware developers to use."
>
> Kevin Miller, CEO of Runtime Revolution, said, "We're delighted 
> Messimer Computing chose Revolution to develop PreceptorTools. In 
> combination with Revolution's user-centric approach to development, 
> PreceptorTools makes it even easier for courseware developers to 
> create great computer-based training solutions."
>
> To download the public beta version of PreceptorTools, visit 
> <http://www.runrev.com/preceptortools/>. This public beta can be used 
> for 30 days. PreceptorTools 1.0 will ship in fourth quarter 2003, and 
> will be distributed in the Runtime Revolution online store.


The last link above <http://www.runrev.com/preceptortools/>. is still 
active, but it leads you to the general RunRev Site advertising Rev 4. 
containing no information about Preceptor Tools.

Another link 
<ftp://ftp.runrev.com/pub/revolution/downloads/third-party/preceptortools> 
of RunRev is no longer active.

The URL <http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21654> 
directs you to Messimer Computing and a download link for Preceptor 
Tools, but with this download link you again end up at the general 
RunRev site with no Preceptor Tools to download.

There were discussions about Preceptor Tools until mid 2005 on all 
RunRev lists (use-revolution, education-revolution, improve-revolution).

In April 2005 Stephen Messimer declared his tools now to be "freeware":

 > On Wed, 20 Apr 2005, Stephen Messimer wrote:
 > Hi Judy,
 >
 > I'd be interested to hear as well.
 >
 > In the mean time PreceptorTools is still posted on my website.  Its
 > freeware and some folks may find it useful.  In fact it might be a
 > useful starting point for a broader discussion concerning what
 > educators  and educational developers would find useful.


Shortly later, on May 21, 2005, 
(education-revolution-request at lists.runrev.com) Stephen Messimer 
addressed the necessity of a "change agent" for Revolution who should 
create more awareness for educational programming both within the group 
of Rev users and the Rev team.:

> In our context the Change Agent should be a Revolution employee who 
> has experience in education and programming.  His or her job should be 
> to attend all the major education conferences demoing education 
> solutions built with revolution, teaching teachers how to use their 
> equipment, conducting and promoting seminars on computers in 
> education, and finally doing market research with end users and 
> department heads to keep the product offerings up to date and 
> congruent with their needs.
>
> Frankly, I don't think Rev will go anywhere in the educational space 
> until they shift some meaningful resources in that direction.
>
> Steve


This statement was made a short time before Preceptor Tools vanished 
from the screen.--

I had looked into 2 to 3 versions of Stephen's tools. They tried to 
facilitate creating courseware by offering a more or less pre-designed 
environment where you could choose between different formats of 
teaching/testing - among them various forms of quizzes and also 
multiple-choice - the main task of the user of the tools was to organise 
content and put it into the environment.

I personally had the difficulty that the Windows version of Preceptor 
Tools would not run properly on Windows - to which Stephen provided the 
information that he had not (yet) had the opportunity to test his 
program on Windows.

As Stephen has declared his Tools to be freeware and in case some of you 
may be interested to have a look at these tools, here are two download 
links for a Windows and MacOS version from my website.

<http://www.sanke.org/Software/ptools_v1.0.5.sit>
<http://www.sanke.org/Software/ptools_1.0.6.zip>

Mark, as I could not find recent download links for the "freeware" 
version, these are 30-days trial versions.

Kevin will probably know where to find the freeware-download link. Maybe 
he can help here?

Regards,

Wilhelm Sanke