e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: OpenClass

  • LearningStudio and OpenClass End-Of-Life: Pearson is getting out of LMS market

    Pearson has notified customers that LearningStudio will be shut down as a standalone LMS over the next 2-3 years. Created from the Pearson acquisition of both eCollege and Fronter, LearningStudio has been targeted primarily at fully-online programs and associated hybrid programs – not for simple augmentation of face-to-face classes. The customer base has mostly included for-profit institutions as well as not-for-profit programs that are often packaged with an online service prover model (e.g. Embanet customers). As of this year, LearningStudio has approximately 110 customers with 1.2 million unique student enrollments.

    This decision is not one isolated to LearningStudio, as the end-of-life notification caps a series of moves by Pearson to get out of the LMS market in general. (more…)

  • Google Classroom Addresses Major Barrier To Deeper Higher Ed Adoption

    A year ago I wrote about Google Classroom, speculating whether it would affect the institutional LMS market in higher education. My initial conclusion:

    I am not one to look at Google’s moves as the end of the LMS or a complete shift in the market (at least in the short term), but I do think Classroom is significant and worth watching. I suspect this will have a bigger impact on individual faculty adoption in higher ed or as a secondary LMS than it will on official institutional adoption, at least for the next 2 – 3 years.

    And my explanation [emphasis added]:

    But these features are targeted at innovators and early adopter instructors who are willing to fill in the gaps themselves.

    1. The course creation, including setting up of rosters, is easy for an instructor to do manually, but it is manual. There has been no discussion that I can find showing that the system can automatically create a course, including roster, and update over the add / drop period.

    (more…)

  • 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 statement ((Statement from the original article before it was updated.)) worth exploring [emphasis added].

    “eCollege” will soon be a thing of the past.

    TCU has narrowed its search for a Learning Management System to two platforms, Blackboard and Desire2Learn (D2L).

    “We’ve had feedback, from faculty specifically, that it’s time for change,” Assistant Provost of Educational Technology and Faculty Development Romy Hughes said.

    TCU has used Pearson’s Learning Studio system since 1999.

    “Pearson is out of the learning management system game,” Hughes said. “We need something to evolve with the Academy of Tomorrow and where we’re moving to at TCU.”

    That last comment got my attention. (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.

  • Why Google Classroom won’t affect institutional LMS market … yet

    Yesterday I shared a post about the new Google Classroom details that are coming out via YouTube videos, and as part of that post I made the following statement [emphasis added]:

    I am not one to look at Google’s moves as the end of the LMS or a complete shift in the market (at least in the short term), but I do think Classroom is significant and worth watching. I suspect this will have a bigger impact on individual faculty adoption in higher ed or as a secondary LMS than it will on official institutional adoption, at least for the next 2 – 3 years.

    The early analysis is based on this video that shows some of the key features:

    (more…)

  • Google Classroom: Early videos of their closest attempt at an LMS

    For years the ed tech community has speculated about Google entering the LMS market, including Wave (discontinued, but some key features embedded in other tools), Apps for Education, and even incorrectly with Pearson OpenClass. Each time there is some possibilities, but Google has not shown interest in fully replacing LMS functionality.

    Google Classroom, announced in May and with new details coming out this week, is the closest that Google has come to fully providing an LMS. The focus is much more on K-12 than on higher education.

    For background on the concept, see this video from May which emphasizes roster integration (with some instructor setup required), document sharing through Google Drive, server and security through the cloud, discussions tied to assignments, and a focus on ‘letting teachers and students teach or learn their way’.

    Yesterday Google shared a new video that directly shows the user interface and some key features.

    (more…)

  • Big 3 MOOC Providers Turning One Year Old

    We are in the middle of the first anniversary of the creation of the big 3 MOOC providers (Coursera, Udacity, edX).

    • Sebastian Thrun announced the creation of Udacity on January 23, 2012 as described by Reuters.
    • Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng announced the creation of Coursera on April 18, 2012 in this NY Times article.
    • MIT and Harvard announced the creation of edX on May 2, 2012 in this MIT article.

    And what a year it’s been, especially in terms of the engagement of national media, university presidents and boards on the topic of MOOCs, online education and the future of higher education in general. I doubt there is a higher education conference this year that doesn’t mention MOOCs in one form or another.

    But one year is a seriously short time period for higher education and educational technology, which are just not used to changes on this time scale. To give some perspective, consider the following:

    • There are quite a few ed tech products that have been or will have been in beta or introductory mode for at least a year when fully released.
    • This time one year ago, few people outside of Virginia knew what a Rector or how a board of them might force a president to resign partially based on discussions about MOOCs.
    • Many LMS and almost all student information system / ERP selection processes (not even including implementation) take more than a year.