Should we ditch LMS's?

[Michael Nelson]

Hi people,

I've manually cut-n-pasted Roisin's Sean's comment so we can continue
the discussion here.

First, hi Roisen, it's great to be meeting so many people who are
enthusiastic about the possibilities of education!

As to your main point: you are right. I wasn't meaning that teachers
should be abandoning LMSs altogether (I still use one in conjunction
with other tools), but rather, addressing the issue of teachers taking
content (often under copyright) from a password-protected LMS and
posting it on a completely transparent blog. Some things are best in an
LMS, but others are more suited to a blog, I just want to make sure that
people are aware of the copyright dangers.

So, thanks for correcting my mis-communication (you'll see that i've
edited the post to include your suggestion and made the copyright point
separate). I don't want to be dismissive of LMS's: I currently use
Moodle to administrate peer assessments and it saves me heaps of admin
time. I think it would be worth evaluating where LMS's can contribute to
a learning environment, and where they inhibit the learning environment
as part of the process.

The project that you and Leigh will be working on sounds exciting and
from what you've written, there will be quite a crossover. It would be
great to be able to share resources - thanks for the offer! Will you
also be using a free-for-education/GNU Free Documentation/Creative
Commons license? The only thing that concerns me is that if you weren't,
and we did take a look at what you were doing, it would be almost
impossible for us to contribute to our own Open Content resource without
violating your copyright.

Look forward to hearing more from you!
-Michael

=============================
Sean FitzGerald Says:
March 24th, 2005 at 2:53 pm e

Hi Roisen - glad to have you on board.

And I agree with you - an inclusive approach is the way to go. LMS do
have their place alongside distributed tools. Flexible learning also
means flexibility in the range of tools used.

Perhaps you can bring this discussion onto the new list - http://groups-
beta.google.com/group/BlendedLearning/.

=============================
Roisin O'Reilly Says:
March 24th, 2005 at 1:08 pm e

Hi All,

First of all I should introduce myself. Leigh brought me into TALO when
he took up the position of Courseware Designer with us. I have been a
bit slack in posting given this is my first one! But I am definitely
interested in your sugestion Michael of co-developing a blended learning
resource.

But I would not be keen to promote that we ‘transition learning
activities away from LMS’s to the distributed tools of the net…’ simply
because I believe that good teachers have always engaged learners
through active construction of knowledge regardless of the tool used and
because LMS’s have a role here.

Not everything George Siemens say’s in his article is negative towards
LMS’s for example he indicates that “Implementing an LMS as part of a
holistic learning environment gives the end user flexibility and control
to move in various paths (driven by learning needs, not by LMS design).”
When a learning environment is created that is driven by good learning
design, that utilises a range of software tools like flash, respondus,
hot potatoes, some LMS tools etc..and is delivered through an LMS for
learning management then the resulting learning experience can be highly
engaging.

I guess I would prefer an outcome that wasn’t quite so dismissive of
LMS’s, maybe something more like “building a teachers capacity to
transform their teaching approaches to enable the development of
engaging, community driven and technology-rich blended learning
environments”

Leigh and I will be working on a resource for our institution which will
seek to build staff capabilities in blended learning. Our resource will
focus on:
the broad issues of why there is a need to change approaches,
- how to design learning environments that are flexible and technology
rich,
- what to plan for (resourcing and scheduling),
- how to develop learning environments that are flexible and technology
rich,
- how to construct and facilitate learning in these learning
environments, and
- finally we will showcase what is being done re. the above.
We would be happy to share our work on this as it develops with you and
others in TALO and of course to contribute to this resource and link to
it from our resource.

[Michael Nelson]

On Thu, 2005-03-24 at 18:05 +1100, Michael Nelson wrote:

> The project that you and Leigh will be working on sounds exciting and
> from what you've written, there will be quite a crossover. It would be
> great to be able to share resources - thanks for the offer! Will you
> also be using a free-for-education/GNU Free Documentation/Creative
> Commons license? The only thing that concerns me is that if you weren't,
> and we did take a look at what you were doing, it would be almost
> impossible for us to contribute to our own Open Content resource without
> violating your copyright.
>

Sorry, I should have added there: which we would never do, but would
basically mean that it would be almost impossible for me to look at your
project and then contribute to an Open-Content version.

Have a great Easter break all!