More than anything else, SRI’s meta-analysis of adaptive learning studies shows that we won’t be able to prove what works until we start designing better and more consistent studies.
Ed Tech
The "Ed Tech" category includes posts about educational technology products themselves, including LMSs and other learning platforms, adaptive learning and other digital curricular materials products, learning analytics, and educational apps of all types. It also includes technical aspects of ed tech products, especially interoperability.
Sakai Is Probably Healthier Than You Think
These days, most people don’t hear much about Sakai, and when they do, it’s usually bad news. Most recently there was the horrible outage at UC Davis and some other Sakai schools using a support vendor called Scriba. Before that, the last thing you may have heard was the departure of Sakai founders such as Indiana […]
Online Program Management: A view of the market landscape
We’re trying to get a better handle on the messy market of so-called “Online Program Management” vendors. This is our first cut. We could use your help improving it.
UC Davis, Sakai, and Open Source
Phil has been a busy boy, putting out two pieces about some Blackboard research that had gotten some negative responses and two more on a horrifically bad LMS outage for UC Davis and other universities using support vendor Scriba. Our main schtick here at e-Literate is to get beyond the headlines. We try to explain what is actually happening and why it is […]
UC Davis LMS Back Online: Update on what we know about Scriba Sakai outage
I’ve been told by two sources that the UC Davis LMS outage I described in this post may be over, and the SmartSite LMS is back online (SmartSite is UC Davis’ implementation of Sakai, hosted by Scriba). I would like to update what we know about the overall situation while we wait for additional confirmation. The […]
Scriba Disaster: Sakai-based LMS for UC Davis is down with no plans for recovery
In what might shape up as one of the worst LMS outages in recent history, UC Davis has been working without an LMS for the past week and does not expect their vendor to fix the problems before the end of the term. UC Davis uses a version of Sakai hosted by the LMS remnants of […]
No, Blackboard Report Did Not Conclude That Online Classes Are “A Poorer Experience”
I’m seeing a lot of chatter online about the recently-released Blackboard report and this slide in particular: Foundational Insights When students take a class online, they make a tacit agreement to a poorer experience which undermines their educational self worth. Students perceive online classes as a loophole they can exploit that also shortcuts the “real” college experience. […]