e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Category: LMS & Learning Platforms

Everything you want to know about Learning Management Systems and whatever comes after them.

  • LMS and Open: The false binary is based on past, not future markets

    D’Arcy Norman has an excellent blog post up titled “On the false binary of LMS vs. Open” that captures a false framing issue.

    We’re pushed into a false binary position – either you’re on the side of the evil LMS, working to destroy all that is beautiful and good, or you’re on the side of openness, love, and awesomeness. Choose. There is no possible way to teach (or learn) effectively in an LMS! It is EVIL and must be rooted out before it sinks its rotting tendrils into the unsuspecting students who are completely and utterly defenseless against its unnatural power!

    While D’Arcy is a proponent of open tools, he rightly calls out the need to understand institutional responsibilities.

    But. We can’t just abdicate the responsibility of the institution to provide the facilities that are needed to support the activities of the instructors and students. That doesn’t mean just “hey – there’s the internet. go to it.” It means providing ways for students to register in courses. For their enrolment to be automatically processed to provision access to resources (physical classrooms, online environments, libraries, etc…). For students’ grades and records to be automatically pushed back into the Registrar’s database so they can get credit for completing the course. For integration with library systems, to grant acccess to online reserve reading materials and other resources needed as part of the course.

    This is an important point, in that the institutional LMS is important and will not, and should not, go away anytime soon. I have pointed out recently that the LMS is one of the very few technologies now used in a majority of courses within an institution, and the institutional responsibility described above helping to explain why. (more…)

  • D2L raises $85 million but growth claims defy logic

    Yesterday D2L announced a second round of investment, this time raising $85 million (a mix of debt and equity) to go with their $80 million round two years ago (see EDUKWEST for a useful roundup of news and article links). While raising $165 million is an impressive feat, does this funding give us new information on the LMS market?

    First, here are the claims by D2L as part of this round of financing, from EdSurge:

    The deal comes on the heels of what the company calls “a year of record growth in the higher education, K-12 and corporate markets.” John Baker, founder and CEO, says the company currently serves 1,100 institutions and 15 million learners–up from 850 and 10 million, respectively, at this time last year. The company also recently opened offices in Latin America, Asia Pacific and Europe.

    That’s a 29% growth in the number of institutions and a 50% growth in the number of learners in just one year. Quite impressive if accurate.

    Yet the company went through a significant round of layoffs in late 2013 that let go more than 7% of its workforce, and according to both LinkedIn data and company statements they have had no significant growth in number of employees over the past year.  (more…)

  • Mobile-first learning platform EmpoweredU acquired by Qualcomm

    Qualcomm, the giant $26 billion wireless technology conglomerate, acquired EmpoweredU – a mobile-first learning platform available for the education market. What does this acquisition mean?

    Who is EmpoweredU?

    The company was created by CEO Steve Poizner in 2011 in partnership with Creative Artists Agency, the world’s largest sports and talent agency, under the name “Encore Career Institute”. The initial work was to offer continuing ed classes targeted at Baby Boomers through the UCLA extension.  ((These are certificate programs for $5,000 – $10,000 total tuition.))  In essence, this was an Online Service Provider (OSP) model similar to Embanet, Deltak, Academic Partnerships and 2U. As described by the San Francisco Chronicle in 2011:

    Poizner, in an interview at the firm’s headquarters this week, said the company combines “three of California’s greatest assets” – its famed public university system, the creative know-how of its technology center, Silicon Valley, and the cutting-edge marketing savvy of Hollywood. [snip]

    In addition to its employment potential for Baby Boomers, Poizner said, the collaboration could bring new revenue for cash-strapped UCLA and thousands of new students from around the nation to its online courses.

    The company changed names to Empowered Careers and then eventually settled on EmpoweredU.

    In the meantime they figured out that the OSP model is high risk and expensive, often requiring investments of $1 – $10 million per program by the OSP, with revenue-sharing profits occurring several years later. EmpoweredU has pivoted over the past year to become a mobile-first learning platform with content services.

    The platform is built on top of the Canvas open source version offered by Instructure and started pilots at 15+ schools this spring (including specific programs at USC, UC Berkeley, U of San Francisco, etc). This may be the most significant use of open source Canvas, and it might end up competing with Canvas, at least indirectly.

    As we’ll see later, EmpoweredU is also attempting to create a learning ecosystem that can combine multiple technologies.

    Why is Qualcomm making an ed tech acquisition?

    I interviewed Vicki Mealer (Senior Director, Business Development, Qualcomm Labs, which is the unit acquiring EmpoweredU) and Steve Poizner today. Vicki’s description of Qualcomm’s interest in ed tech is that they are all about mobile technology, and they have had a philanthropic interest in education for years (donating over $240 million cash to various institutions).  Qualcomm wants to be a behind-the-scenes cheerleader, but they also need an ecosystem for each market. Qualcomm Labs started looking at education a year ago, trying to identify and overcome barriers for adoption of mobile technology. Some of the perceived barriers: (more…)

  • Early Review of Google Classroom

    Meg Tufano is co-Founder of SynaptIQ+ (think tank for social era knowledge) and leader of McDermott MultiMedia Group (an education consulting group focused on Google Apps EDU). We have been checking out Google Classroom – with her as the teacher and me as the student. I include some of Meg’s bio here as it is worth noting her extensive experience designing and teaching online courses for more than a decade.

    Meg posted a Google Slides review of her initial experiences using Google Classroom from a teacher’s perspective, which I am sharing below with minimal commentary. The review includes annotated slides showing the various features and Meg’s comments.

    I have not done as much work to show the student view, but I will note the following:

    • The student view does not include the link to the Chrome Store that Meg finds to be too confusing.
    • The biggest challenge I’ve had so far is managing my multiple Google accounts (you have to be logged into the Google Apps for Edu as your primary Google account to enter Classroom, which is not that intuitive to students).
    • I wonder if Google will continue to use Google tools so prominently in Classroom (primary GDrive, YouTube, GDocs) or if the full release will make it easier to embed non-Google tools.
    • I have previously written “Why Google Classroom won’t affect institutional LMS market … yet”, and after initial testing, nothing has changed my opinion.
    • I have one other post linking to video-based reviews of Google Classroom here.

  • Blackboard’s Big News that Nobody Noticed

    This week was both D2L’s FUSION conference and Blackboard’s BbWorld. The conventional wisdom going around is that there was no big news out of either conference. In Blackboard’s case, that’s just not true. In fact, there was an astonishing amount of very significant news. It’s just that Blackboard didn’t do a very good job of explaining it to people. And that, by itself, is also news.

    (more…)

  • Blackboard’s Perceptis Acquisition Offers Clues into Company’s Strategy

    Yesterday Blackboard announced that they acquired Perceptis, a provider of help desk and financial aid support services for colleges and universities. In and of itself, this is not a huge acquisition. Perceptis has 33 clients, offers services that Blackboard was already offering, and has no substantial new technology. But as we approach BbWorld next week, the move provides some early hints into the strategic direction that the company may highlight at the conference.

    I had the opportunity to talk with Blackboard’s Vice President of Education Services Katie Blot about the move.

    (more…)

  • Instructure’s CTO Joel Dehlin Abruptly Resigns

    One week after the conclusion of Instructure’s Users’ Conference, CTO Joel Dehlin abruptly resigned from the company for a new job. Joel took the CTO job with Instructure in summer 2013, around the same time as Devlin Daley’s departure (Devlin was co-founder). Joel’s resignation comes as a surprise, especially given his prominent placement as the technology lead for the Canvas LMS. As recently as InstructureCon on June 27th, Joel gave the product update presentation.

    The change became apparent by viewing the new Instructure leadership page (nice page design, btw), as I noticed that Joel was not included. I contacted Devin Knighton, Director of Public Relations for Instructure, who confirmed that the resignation was unexpected and was Joel’s decision. I am not sure how significant this resignation is for the company. What we do know is that Joel has not been replaced as CTO, but that Jared Stein (VP of Research and Education), Trey Bean (VP of Product), David Burggraaf (VP of Engineering), and Zach Willy (Chief Architect) will cover the CTO responsibilities in the near term. I would have more details, but Devin is on family vacation, and I did not want to push for him to send me an official email.

    We’ll keep you posted if we find out more information (assuming it is newsworthy).

    Update: Corrected second paragraph on VP of Product and VP of Engineering per Devin Knighton comment below.