Online education platform having an instructor dashboard

A method for implementing an online education platform that provides an online course over a network to a plurality of learner computing devices in which learners view and interact with education content of the online course, the method comprising:

• providing, by the at least one processor, an instructor dashboard on a user interface of a client application executable by an instructor computing device associated with an instructor of the online course, the instructor dashboard displaying a graphical visualization of at least one of engagement metrics or grading metrics on the user interface, wherein an authoring tool is integrated with the instructor dashboard, the instructor dashboard displaying a selectable link to initiate an edit of the education content on the user interface that also provides the graphical visualization;
• providing, by the at least one processor, the authoring tool on the user interface upon activation of the link, the authoring tool displaying a text editor configured to receive a modification to the education content;
• converting, by the at least one processor, the education content received via the text editor to an education markup language (EML) format, the EML format including a restrictive extensible markup language (XML) defining a set of restrictive XML tags, the EML format defining a plurality of blocks, each of the plurality of blocks corresponding to a different type of data content with restricted attributes that limit a block to a particular type of data content such that one or more features are not allowed;
• and
• provide, over the network, the education content in the EML format to the plurality of learner computing devices associated with the online course,
• wherein the EML format is configured to enable native rendering of the education content in a web application, a mobile web application, and a native mobile application executable by the plurality of learner computing devices.

A system comprising:

• at least one processor;
• and
• a non-transitory computer-readable medium configured to store executable instructions that when executed by the at least one processor are configured to implement an online education platform configured to provide an online course over a network to a plurality of learner computing devices, the online course providing education content in which learners view and interact with the education content, the online education platform configured to:
• provide an instructor dashboard on a user interface of a client application executable by an instructor computing device associated with an instructor of the online course, the instructor dashboard displaying a graphical visualization of at least one of engagement metrics or grading metrics, wherein an authoring tool is integrated with the instructor dashboard, the instructor dashboard displaying a selectable link to initiate an edit of the education content on the user interface that also provides the graphical visualization;
• provide the authoring tool on the user interface upon activation of the selectable link, the authoring tool displaying a text editor configured to receive a modification to the education content;
• convert the education content received via the text editor from a hypertext markup language (HTML) to an education markup language (EML) format, the EML format including a restrictive extensible markup language (XML) defining a set of restrictive XML tags, the EML format defining a plurality of blocks, each of the plurality of blocks corresponding to a different type of data content with restricted attributes that limit a block to a particular type of data content such that one or more features are not allowed;
• and
• provide, over the network, the education content in the EML format to the plurality of learner computing devices associated with the online course,
• wherein the EML format is configured to enable native rendering of the education content in a web application, a mobile web application, and a native mobile application executable by the plurality of learner computing devices.