Forum LAMS Newsletter: Newsletter 31, 18th Jun, 06

By: James Dalziel

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Special Announcement – LAMS V2 Beta Launch and Workshop
London Knowledge Lab, UK, 10am-1pm, 4th July 2006.

For those following the development of LAMS V2, we’re pleased to announce the upcoming beta release at the workshop described below:

LAMS Version 2 Beta Release and Workshop

The Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) is a new generation of e-learning technology for designing, managing and delivering online collaborative learning activities (also called “learning designs”). LAMS provides educators with an intuitive visual authoring environment for creating and sharing sequences of learning activities. These activities can include a range of individual tasks, small group work and whole class activities based on both content and collaboration. LAMS has been used in universities, further education and schools for several years, leading to a number of positive evaluations (eg, JISC and BECTA reports). LAMS is freely available as open source software.

Following almost two years of redevelopment, the LAMS Foundation is pleased to announce the beta release of LAMS V2. The beta release demonstrates a wide range of new features, as well as significant improvements in architecture, scalability and robustness. While not yet recommended for live use with students, the beta release is ready for evaluation and feedback from educators. The production release of LAMS V2 is planned for October, 2006, and will incorporate feedback from the beta release where possible.

The London Knowledge Lab is pleased to host the LAMS Version 2 Beta Release and accompanying workshop. This workshop follows on from an earlier LAMS presentation in February 2006. The workshop will be led by Professor James Dalziel, Leader of the LAMS initiative and Director of the Macquarie E-Learning Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE) at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. The workshop will also include a presentation about the technical requirements for building a LAMS tool by Alex Little of the Open University, a presentation about LAMS V2 and games and simulation making by Ken Kahn and a discussion of an approach to pedagogic planning using LAMS by Professor Diana Laurillard.

Cost: There is no cost for this workshop
Registration: Spaces are limited to please email Renee Vance ( rvance@melcoe.mq.edu.au ) to register
Program:
10am – Coffee and Registration
10:30am – Welcome and Introduction by Professor Diana Laurillard
10:40am – LAMS V2 Beta Release by Professor James Dalziel
- Launch of beta release
- Background to redevelopment
- Goals for V2
- Overview of new features
- Overview of architecture
- Live Demonstration
- Future directions
11:40am – Discussion
12noon – Using the LAMS V2 “Tools Contract” to build new activity tools by Alex Little, Open University
12:20 – LAMS and a pedagogic planning tool by Professor Diana Laurillard and Professor James Dalziel
12:35 – LAMS V2 and games and simulation making by Ken Kahn
12:50 – Discussion
1pm – Close and Lunch

LAMS front page article for Education Review/Campus Review

Education Review and Campus Review are the main weekly education newspapers for the K-12 and higher education sectors in Australia/New Zealand. In the latest editions you'll find an article about LAMS on the front cover, together with a free CD of LAMS resources. On the inside cover there are more news items about LAMS including a case study (different in each edition).

We had a front page article a year ago when we officially launched LAMS as open source software, and we'd always planned on having a one year followup, so it’s great to see it out there. If you work in Aust/NZ, and are known to your colleagues as someone interested in LAMS, you could well see a new rush of interest arising from this!

For links to PDFs of the articles, see:
http://www.lamscommunity.org/dotlrn/clubs/educationalcommunity/lamsresearchdevelopment/forums/message-view?message%5fid=242018

To access the content of the new CD (LAMS CD 2006), see:
http://www.lamsfoundation.org/CD0506/

Upcoming James Dalziel travel

I’m about to begin another round-the-world trip – so here’s where you can find me at upcoming events:

June 26-28th – ED-MEDIA, Orlando, Florida, USA
June 29th – EDUCAUSE Workflow CAMP, Burlington, Vermont, USA
June 30th – CPD25 Conference, London, UK
July 1st – Visit to CARET, Cambridge University
July 3rd – Meetings in London
July 4th – London Knowledge Lab LAMS V2 workshop
July 5-7th – ICALT Conference, Netherlands
July 10th – Visit to Huazhong Normal University, Wuhan, China
July 11th – LAMS workshop at City University of Hong Kong, HK

I’ve also just received news that my presentation for EDUCAUSE 2006 (9-12th, Dallas, USA) has been accepted, so I’ll be at this event for those who’d like to catch me there. I also expect I’ll be visiting other parts of the US and the UK either before or after EDUCAUSE 2006 conference (so if you have an event around this time that you’d like me to present at, let me know and I’ll see what I can do).

Missing newsletter?

Several people noticed that there was no newsletter last week, and wondered what happened. I try to keep to a weekly schedule when I can, but we moved house last weekend (gruelling but successful!), and by the time I was ready to do the newsletter (Wednesday this week), I thought it best to skip it and wait until now.

Posted by James Dalziel