Speaking at AACE Ed-Media Next Month

I’ll be participating in the Association for Advancement of Computing in Education‘s Ed-Media 2006 Conference on James Dalziel‘s panel as part of the Learning Management Systems Symposium. Here’s the description of the panel:

It only took a decade for the LMS to go from being a good idea to being a software system used by most universities. But does the LMS have a certain future? Growing challenges may soon disrupt the existing marketplace � these include:

• Frustration among many leading LMS users with the slow pace of pedagogical innovation by LMS vendors;
• Ongoing difficulties in integrating other products into LMS platforms;
• The rise of other major learning technologies such as Repositories, Learning Content Management systems, Assessment systems, Virtual Classrooms and Learning Design systems;
• New approaches to building software based on a “Service Oriented Architecture/Approach” (SOA); and
• The increasing impact of open source software, and open standards.

Perhaps the greatest challenge may arise from a fundamental shift away from LMSs as the central “platform” for learning. An alternative vision for Learning Platforms is growing around the concept of an overarching portal system that integrates various specialist learning systems (such as repositories, learning design, etc) into a composite learning systems framework (sometimes called a Learning Management Operating System � LMOS). This session will explore current and future challenges for LMSs, how LMSs may respond, and alternative visions for Learning Platforms.

I’ll be able to post the transcript of my paper after the proceedings are published.