Update 5/17/16: I made a mistake in my math on the UW Milwaukee improvements. The number of A’s and B’s increased 163% increased 220% for “unprepared” students and 170% for “prepared” students. I apologize for the error. Update 7/23: Read this blog post for D2L admission of mistakes and changes to claims. At this point I’d say that […]
LMS & Learning Platforms
Everything you want to know about Learning Management Systems and whatever comes after them.
U of Phoenix: Losing hundreds of millions of dollars on adaptive-learning LMS bet
It would be interesting to read (or write) a post mortem on this project some day. Two and a half years ago I wrote a post describing the University of Phoenix investment of a billion dollars on new IT infrastructure, including hundreds of millions of dollars spent on a new, adaptive-learning LMS. In another post I […]
Google Classroom Addresses Major Barrier To Deeper Higher Ed Adoption
A year ago I wrote about Google Classroom, speculating whether it would affect the institutional LMS market in higher education. My initial conclusion: I am not one to look at Google’s moves as the end of the LMS or a complete shift in the market (at least in the short term), but I do think […]
68% of Statistics Are Meaningless, D2L Edition
Two years ago, I wrote about how D2L’s analytics package looked serious and potentially ground-breaking, but that there were serious architectural issues with the underlying platform that were preventing the product from working properly for customers. Since then, we’ve been looking for signs that the company has dealt with these issues and is ready to […]
About The D2L Claim Of BrightSpace LeaP And Academic Improvements
Recently I wrote a post checking up on a claim by D2L that seems to imply that their learning platform leads to measurable improvements in academic performance. The genesis of this thread is a panel discussion at the IMS Global conference where I argued that LMS usage in aggregate has not improved academic performance but is […]
An Example Why LMS Should Not Be Only Part of Learning Ecosystem
In Michael’s initial post on the Post-LMS, he built on this central theme: Reading Phil’s multiple reviews of Competency-Based Education (CBE) “LMSs”, one of the implications that jumps out at me is that we see a much more rapid and coherent progression of learning platform designs if you start with a particular pedagogical approach in mind. The idea […]
The EDUCAUSE NGDLE and an API of One’s Own
I have been meaning for some time to get around to blogging about the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative’s (ELI’s) paper on a Next-Generation Digital Learning Environment (NGDLE) and Tony Bates’ thoughtful response to it. The core concepts behind the NGDLE are that a next-generation digital learning environment should have the following characteristics: Interoperability and Integration Personalization […]