Overview

Language Corner grew out of my own classroom. I was teaching English at a university in China and wanted a better way for students, especially shy ones, to work together outside of class. It became an e-learning platform to improve blended learning for language teachers and content teachers, available in English, French, and Chinese.

How it came together

• WikiWriteRight: the first experiment, a MediaWiki site where groups of ESL students wrote stories together. The writing they did as groups was better than what they did alone.
• Language-Corner.org (launched February 2011): group spaces built on Drupal and the EduGlu distribution (itself based on Open Atrium). Each class or group got a space for discussion and materials, plus polls, an image board, and quizzes for collecting assignments.
• Growing use: by 2011 it was getting attention from teachers and students at my university and from teachers in the US, France, and Sweden.
• Building it: I did most of the development and site building myself and brought in outside developers for the harder pieces, like live chat, video conferencing, and ecommerce.

What I learned

• I kept building features and never worked out a business model or revenue. By late 2011 the money was running low, and I was trying to make the product “ready” instead of getting it in front of more real users.
• It was a commercial failure, but it’s where I cut my teeth on Drupal. When it wound down, I went from building for my own site to building for clients, which became INT3C and my Drupal open source work.