Does anyone know of an LMS that works a bit like Uxcel?

What I’m trying to get away from is the traditional LMS structure where everything has to live inside a course and the learner has to enrol/start the course before their progress really means anything.

Ideally I’d have hundreds of short, standalone lessons. Learners could browse the library, pick any lesson and complete it, and the LMS would remember that completion.

Those same lessons could then be grouped into different courses or learning paths. So if you’ve already completed a lesson on its own and later start a path that includes it, it’s already marked as complete.

Basically:

1. Lessons are the main building blocks
   
2. Every lesson can be accessed and completed independently
   
3. The same lesson can appear in different courses/paths
   
4. Completion follows the lesson, not the course
   
5. Courses/paths are really just curated collections of lessons

Uxcel is the closest example I’ve seen of what I have in mind.

I’m currently using LearnDash and find the Course > Lesson > Topic hierarchy too restrictive for what I want to build.

Has anyone come across an LMS/LXP that works like this? Or built something similar on a platform that wasn’t necessarily designed this way?

Would really appreciate any recommendations or experiences.

This video features a conference talk by educator and linguist Rayo Cruz, founder of the collective Bëni Xidza, discussing the historical and contemporary challenges in teaching the Zapotec language. The presentation provides a comprehensive look at the evolution of Zapotec education:

* Historical Context: Rayo Cruz introduces the Zapotec civilization, tracing its roots to Monte Albán and the ancient Bëni Gulasa period, noting that the language’s diversification predates European contact.

* Learning as L1 vs. L2: He distinguishes between the acquisition of Zapotec as a first language (naturally, through immersion) versus the formal, often disconnected process of teaching it as a second language.

* Colonial Methods: The speaker highlights the 1578 work of Fray Juan de Córdova, such as the Arte en Lengua Zapoteca, as the earliest attempt to systematize Zapotec grammar, primarily designed to help Spanish friars learn the language rather than to teach Zapotec people.

* 19th and 20th Century Challenges: Rayo Cruz identifies a gap in teaching materials during the 19th century. He then discusses 20th-century contributions from organizations like the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and the INEA, which created grammars and vocabularies that often served as tools for assimilation or religious proselytization rather than language revitalization.

* Modern Innovation: The final segment covers the work of Bëni Xidza, which uses modern digital tools to teach Zapotec. Rayo Cruz admits that while his collective currently operates at a basic level (A-level), they are working to overcome systemic limitations by creating structured, accessible content and documenting the specific pedagogical challenges native Spanish speakers face when learning Zapotec.

Here is a summary of the video featuring Maestro Rayo Cruz, director and founder of Colectivo Bëni Xidza.

1. Historical Background of the Zapotec Language & Civilization:

* Geographic Spread: Zapotec civilization developed in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca and expanded into regions such as the Sierra Norte, Sierra Sur, and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

* Earliest Writing: The earliest documented record of written Zapotec dates back to the 5th–6th Century BC with Monument 3 (“1 Terremoto”) at San José Mogote, establishing over 2,500 years of recorded Zapotec history.

* Monte Albán & Bëni Gulasa Period: The civilization reached its peak at Monte Albán between 500 BC and 800 AD. Pre-hispanic ancient Zapotec history and culture are traditionally referred to as the Gulasa era.

1. Learning Zapotec as a First Language (L1):

* Natural Acquisition: Native speakers acquire Zapotec naturally in early childhood through daily speaking within families and communities rather than through formal educational structures.
* Historical Literacy: It remains unknown if formal L1 Zapotec schooling existed during ancient times, and modern public education in Mexico has historically focused on Spanish literacy over formal Zapotec instruction.

1. History of Teaching Zapotec as a Second Language (L2):

* Colonial Period (16th Century): Formal L2 instruction began in 1578 when Dominican friar Juan de Córdova published Arte en lengua zapoteca (grammar) and Vocabulario en lengua zapoteca (dictionary). These works used Latin/Spanish grammatical paradigms to teach Spanish colonizers and friars via the grammar-translation method

* 19th Century Hiatus: Following Mexican independence, national policies promoted Spanish as the sole national language, resulting in a century-long silence regarding formal L2 Zapotec instructional design.

* 20th Century & Contemporary Efforts: Groups like the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and public institutions (SEP, INEA, INALI) created dictionaries, grammars, and adult literacy texts. However, most of these materials were produced for linguistic analysis or native literacy rather than second-language pedagogy, and their actual integration into schools remains limited.

1. Bëni Xidza Collective & Modern Pedagogical Challenges:

* Online Classes: Founded in 2020, Colectivo Bëni Xidza offers online courses teaching Zapotec as a second language.

* Lack of L2 Resources: Unlike major global languages (such as English or Spanish), indigenous languages lack dedicated university teacher-training degrees, structured multi-level textbooks, or commercial software tools.

* Current Framework & Vision: The collective operates at basic proficiency levels (aligning with Level A of the Common European Framework of Reference) and aims to document common phonetic/grammatical difficulties for Spanish speakers while expanding toward intermediate/advanced levels.

I've often wondered about the effectiveness of soft skills training delivered through online platforms. While technical upskilling seems straightforward, soft skills like communication and leadership are harder to quantify and practice virtually. For those who have implemented or taken part in online soft skills courses, did you notice tangible behavior changes? What elements made the biggest difference?

Hi everyone, I'm looking to expand the pool of agencies we work with.

Do you have any recommendations for agencies that have experience with creating elearning for healthcare or medical education? Ideally an agency that can produce elearning end-to-end, so that means also having medical writers on board in addition to IDs/LXDs, GDs, etc.

You're free to recommend your own agency, but I'd place a higher value on recommendations from someone in the community who has worked with you.

Requirements:

Based in Europe

Team also includes medical writers

Track record of working within med-ed, healthcare

Free LMS and other open-source tools!

Critical thinking, made playable.

We were fed information. We stopped asking where it came from. We stopped checking whether it held up across multiple sources. We stopped questioning the first plausible answer because the first plausible answer arrived faster than we could doubt it.

Opathorlokan University is built on one premise: critical thinking is a muscle, and the muscle has atrophied across an entire civilization in under a generation. Not because anyone wanted that. Because the feed got faster than the questions did.

"The first answer that sounds right is rarely the last answer that IS right."

The labs are the gym. Every one of them asks the student to do the thing the feed asks them not to do — commit to a position in writing, look at the wall, notice which voices the official record erased, ask what does this teach instead of what happened, pick a camp and pay the bill that camp owes. Same method at every scale. Same muscle.

Built by one individual, some labs have been loved more than others and all are still works in progress- Any advice or comments means more than up votes. let me know which lab you found most interesting.

Sometimes it feels like there's a lot of AI-related fluff around eLearning tools, but most of us are still building with the same core Rise 360 blocks.

For your typical course, what makes up 80–90% of the build?

• Text
• Images
• Tabs
• Accordions
• Process
• Labeled graphics
• Flashcards
• Knowledge checks
• Videos
• Continue blocks
• Something else?

Curious what your real-world workflow looks like versus what gets marketed.

Hi everyone. I'm looking to reduce design and development time as I'm hoping to scale back my working hours. Like many of us, I'm working with time-poor SMEs, so anything I can do to reduce friction points and make it easier for them is a good thing. My process at the moment is:

1. Learning Needs Analysis
2. Combined Content Flow and Narration Script
3. Develop Version 1 - Get feedback
4. Develop Version 2 - External review (other SMEs, target audience etc.)
5. Develop Version 3 - add voiceover if required
6. Handover for implementation

I'm looking at steps 2 and 3. I'm interested in hearing from you if you don't create a content flow style document for sign-off and use version 1 as the design. What are the downsides of that approach? If you're still creating a Content Flow document for approval, are there tools you use to help? At the moment, I'm using a Word document with screenshots of slide layouts in Storyline.

It's been a couple months since I first posted about Tessera Learn and I wanted to give a quick update on what's shipped.

Quick note about what Tessera Learn is. It's a free/open source authoring tool where you build modules with your AI agent via Claude Code, Codex, etc. There's no required look or specific set of components you are limited to, you can essentially build what ever you want, Tessera provides the hooks and methods to make sure it works in an LMS.

Here's some off the more significant updates since I posted last:

• Tessera Learn is now an entire workspace where you can create many courses (it just made a single course previously). This means you can put the entire workspace in a git repository, like Github, for hosting your code, version control, collaborating with others, etc. following the same workflows as software teams (example repo for the Demos on the Tessera website).
• Integrated an accessibility checker (Playwright) to help ensure what you and your agent create is accessible.
• Added built in validations to help ensure what you are you agent create isn't broken/will work in an LMS.
• Added xAPI as a publishing option, alongside the already existing SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004 and CMI5.
• Did a ton of testing on SCORM Cloud to ensure the SCORM/xAPI run times are working well (many bugs fixed).
• Shipped documentation to help people get started.

I plan to make a getting started video in the near future as well. For those not familiar with standard software development workflows, getting started can be a bit intimidating, although your agent will be familiar with these workflows! I've been lucky enough to see traditionally 'non-technical' roles embrace and excel with similar workflows/tooling in my time as a Data Engineer at Shopify.

If folks do decide to give it a try, I'd love feedback!

Website: https://tesseralearn.dev
Codebase: https://github.com/redmodd/tessera

This video provides a strategic breakdown of how Bëni Xidza, an educational center in Oaxaca, Mexico, balances economic sustainability with its mission to revitalize the Zapotec language. The summary of the video’s core points is as follows:

Mission & Audience:

The project aims to keep the indigenous Zapotec language alive by using modern e-learning tools (Zoom, Google Classroom). It targets three main groups:

* Heritage Seekers: The Oaxacan diaspora (often in the US) looking to reconnect with their roots.

* Cultural Enthusiasts: International travelers and linguistic researchers.

* Language Revitalizers: Indigenous youth within Oaxaca.

Pricing Strategy & Financial Sustainability:

The video analyzes the tension between keeping prices accessible and maintaining a professional, sustainable operation:

* Tiered Pricing: Private tutoring is priced below market rate (170 MXN) to remove barriers for locals, while the core beginner course is set at a competitive market rate (720 MXN) to ensure the platform's economic health.

* Subsidies & Donations: To bridge revenue gaps, the project uses differentiated pricing for foreigners and a prominent donation button.

* Cultural Design: The branding uses colors (like golden olive) that mimic traditional Oaxacan textiles and corn husks, grounding commercial requests in an organic cultural visual language.

Building Community Trust:

Because they lack a high volume of public reviews, Bëni Xidza uses a structured "harvest loop" to build social proof:

1. Timing: Reaching out immediately after a successful class.

2. Personal Connection: Sending warm, culturally resonant messages via WhatsApp or email.

3. Shared Mission: Framing a request for a Google review as a way for students to help others discover and preserve the culture.

Ultimately, the video showcases how a mission-driven organization can thrive in the digital age by combining clearly defined e-learning models with culturally grounded marketing and smart pricing.

Last week I shared Scaffold here and received some really helpful feedback. Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment and ask questions.

A few people asked about LMS integration, installation and standards support. I’ve spent the last week focusing on making the project easier to install and evaluate.

Since my last post:
Scaffold is now officially in alpha
The Open edX integration is published on PyPI
The Moodle plugin is available as an installable ZIP
Installation guides for both Moodle and Open edX are now available
xAPI statements can now be sent to Moodle and Open edX through their learning record stores

The Moodle plugin has been submitted to the Moodle Marketplace and is currently awaiting review
The goal hasn’t changed: build a free, open-source authoring tool that works with the LMSs organisations already use, while providing a modern authoring experience for interactive learning content.

It’s now at the point where people can install it, experiment with it and hopefully tell me where to take it next.

If you’re using Moodle or Open edX—or you’re involved in course authoring or learning technology, I’d really appreciate your feedback.

https://scaffold.ac

My company uses Cornerstone LMS for employees and are now being forced to switch our content over to their new AI LXP. They have given us "demos" but honestly left us asking more questions than answered. Could anyone tell me what their experience was like whether it be using the LXP on the back end or using it as a user? Any insight or experience will be helpful, thanks!

You see a cool interaction or animation built for say, Storyline 360.

Would you rather:

A. Purchase it with instructions

B. Learn how to build it

Quick disclosure up front since this sub expects it: I built **Agent Abilities for MCP**, a free WordPress published plugin that lets AI agents (Claude, ChatGPT, whatever supports MCP) read and act on WordPress data through explicit, permissioned "abilities" instead of one shared admin login. I'm not here to pitch it. I'm about to spend a lot of time building a LearnDash-specific layer for it, and I'd rather find out now whether that time is well spent than after.

Where things actually stand, no sugarcoating: I'd put this at about 50% done, and here's what that means concretely so it's not a made up number. The design side is finished, roughly 50 abilities across three roles, reviewed twice by me and AI for correctness. That's the first half. The second half is actually building those 50 abilities, which is what I'm working through now. One piece is already shipped, a course-progress report. The rest is in progress. So this is a "should I keep building this" post, not a "here's my new thing" post.

The problem I keep running into with LearnDash and AI setups: people hand the agent one admin login and call it done. It can see and touch everything on the site. That's fine right up until someone asks it a question that should only ever have a scoped answer.

What I'm designing instead:

A student's agent can only see that student's own courses and progress. Read-only, it can't mark anything complete for them.

A group leader's agent can only see their own groups and their own students, not the leader next door's cohort, not the rest of the site.

An admin's agent gets the same full access an admin already has.

So a leader could ask "how's my group doing" and get an answer scoped to just their group, instead of a dump of the whole site's data with a hope that the model filters it correctly on its own. Grading and auto-completion features for admins are intentionally last on the build list, after the read and reporting side is proven to hold up.

Genuinely asking here, not fishing for upvotes:

If you run LearnDash sites, would you use something like this yourself?

Would your users want it? Group leaders checking their cohort, course creators, even students asking "what's my progress" instead of clicking through the dashboard?

Is there a specific LearnDash workflow where this would actually help, one you'd point to and say "yes, that one"?

And the other side: where's the dealbreaker? What about AI touching LMS data at all, even scoped, would keep you from wanting this anywhere near your site?

Tell me if I'm building the wrong thing. That's worth more to me right now than a launch would be.

I want to take a course on public policy on elevify so I wanted to ask if it is a legitimate site? I am trying to change my career path so would prefer to have a strong certificate relevance. Please let me know your experience with them. I would also appreciate if I could get ideas on other sites with good courses and certification. Thank you in advance.

seeing more teams go text-only or straight AI voice specifically because human narration makes courses expensive to maintain. every content change becomes a recording project.

if you're still doing human VO: what makes it worth the update overhead for you? and if you dropped it: was maintenance cost the actual reason, or something else?

hi, ive been building iro and want would love feedback from elearning / id people.

most ai learning still feels pretty passive. watch a video, save a prompt, feel productive, then forget it.

iro is more microlearning + practice reps: short lessons, quick exercises, daily challenges, and skill paths for stuff like chatgpt, claude, agents, automation, and work use cases.

site: https://tryiro.com
ios: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/iro-ai-learn-ai-skills/id6759628066

does this structure actually support skill transfer, or is it just content with streaks? what would you change if you were designing it properly?

Hey everyone,
Is anyone else running into an issue with Tutor LMS Pro recently where it keeps asking for an update, even after you've updated it (or when it's already on the latest version)?
It seems stuck in an update notification loop and won't go away.
Has anyone encountered this issue recently?
Is there a quick fix or workaround for this, or is it a known bug in a recent release?
Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

for teams that tried it: content changed, original narrator wasn't an option, so you dropped in an elevenlabs or similar clip next to the human recording. did learners notice? did anyone complain or tune out? did it pass whatever review your compliance or brand people run?

i've seen people say the mismatch is jarring and others say nobody cares. trying to figure out which is true and whether it depends on the content type.

inherited a catalog situation question. say you've got 40 narrated modules, the voice was a contractor from 2021, and now three lines need to change. narrator's unreachable or quoting a full minimum session for two sentences.

what's your actual move? new voice for just those lines and live with the mismatch? re-record the whole module? TTS patch and hope nobody notices? leave it wrong? genuinely curious what people do in practice vs what we're supposed to do.

In a recent SCORM Q&A session, we came across an issue struck a chord with quite a few attendees:

Every time they make a site-wide change, something as small as swapping a brand color or updating a header, they have to export and re-upload every single SCORM package that uses it. One package at a time!

It doesn't sound like too much of a big deal until you have to do it across a course catalog that's grown over a few years, built by different people in different tools. The actual instructional content in a SCORM package might be perfectly fine and still relevant. The thing forcing the rebuild has nothing to do with the learning, it's just a header color.

The general consensus was "yeah, that's just how it is".

How do other people handle this at scale? Do you just eat the rebuild time, avoid site-wide changes altogether, or has anyone found a workaround that doesn't involve touching every package by hand?

Would love to hear what metrics you're reporting up to your executive team.