The 1998 paper by Martin Mühlenbrock, Frank Tewissen, and myself introduced a multi-agent architecture and a component engineering approach for building open distributed learning environments to support group learning in different types of classroom settings. It took up prior work on "multiple student modeling" as a method to configure and inform group learning situations based on individually assessed learner models. Additionally, methods for detecting collaboration patterns in group action logs were introduced. The approach was exemplified with several applications in the areas of mathematics and general problems solving. The commentary traces a line of development from this work to current mobile and web-based learning architectures and approaches to action logging for interaction analysis. "Lessons learned" are discussed and briefly illustrated with examples from recent work on intelligently enhanced learning environments.