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,
([email protected]) 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
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