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 […]
D2L
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 […]
LMS Observations: You had me until you went nihilist
Mark Drechsler has a fascinating post in response to my recent LMS as minivan about D2L’s retention claims, mostly playing off of this theme: I answered another question by saying that the LMS, with multiple billions invested over 17+ years, has not “moved the needle” on improving educational results. I see the value in providing a […]
About Those D2L Claims of LMS Usage Increasing Retention Rates
In my post last week on the IMS Global Consortium conference #LILI15, I suggested that LMS usage in aggregate has not improved academic performance and noted that John Baker from D2L disagreed. John Baker from D2L disagreed on this subject, and he listed off internal data of 25% or more (I can’t remember detail) improved […]
Pitchbook Lists Most Valuable Ed Tech Companies
Update: Jeez – sorry about the multiple typos (mistakenly showed in thousands instead of millions). Fixed now. Pitchbook – a database service for M&A, private equity and venture capital – listed in Hot Topics what they saw as the top ten most valuable ed tech companies based on public valuations1. The definition of startup is […]
Interesting Comment on Pearson’s LMS Plans From Customer
On April 1, long-time eCollege (aka Pearson’s LearningStudio) customer Texas Christian University (TCU) gave an update on their LMS selection process to the student newspaper TCU360. In this article there was an interesting statement1 worth exploring [emphasis added]. “eCollege” will soon be a thing of the past. TCU has narrowed its search for a Learning […]
Dammit, the LMS
Count De Monet: I have come on the most urgent of business. It is said that the people are revolting! King Louis: You said it; they stink on ice. – History of the World, Part I Jonathan Rees discovered a post I wrote about the LMS in 2006 and, in doing so, discovered that I […]