e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: Ed-Media

  • Why We Need More Standards

    I almost missed this post by Scott Leslie expressing his mixed feelings about the standards talk coming out of Alt-i-Labs. Lucky for me, Stephen picked it up in OLDaily. Scott writes:

    Part of me really wants some of these developments to come true, to deliver the promised ‘plug and play’ elearning environments described herein, and in my rational moments I know that 10 years really isn’t that long for a field like this to coalesce around an open set of interoperability specs. And yet it would be hard to fault a newcomer looking at these presentations for wondering if this represents what is still to be done, how anyone manages to develop quality online learning experiences now (and how many PhDs will be required to operate the CMS of the future)?

    The thing is, the newcomer would be correct to wonder. While a good teacher can cultivate quality learning experiences (online or otherwise) with a rock and a stick, the truth is that today’s online learning environments don’t really help them much. The majority of online courses basically use the LMS as a discussion board (a.k.a. “the rock”) and a file sharing system (a.k.a. “the stick”). There are several reasons why interoperability standards should help this situation a great deal. (more…)

  • 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.