Forum LAMS for Tech-Heads - General Forum: LAMS vs Moodle Lesson Activity

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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Hi Atif,

Really good questions.

Before the latest Moodle version, there wasn't possible to do sequencing of activities within Moodle. It was I believe very recently that this was available (I think Moodle 2.3 or 2.4, cannot recall for sure).

Additionally, LAMS provides other features like Branching,

But my reading is that LAMS and Moodle are very different products:

Moodle is a full-fletched learning management system (LMS) with full course features.

Whereas LAMS is a learning platform to create and deploy sequences of learning activities. And not so much course management and all.

In LAMS we focus on the process of learning more than the course management and therefore we provide tools to create learning "workflows".

Yes, LAMS also has courses, subcourses, gradebook, user role controls, etc like a LMS... but that's not really where we put a lot of our emphasis though.

There are a few videos in YouTube that can provide a better overview of LAMS if you want to have a look.

Personally, I think the Moodle and LAMS integration is a real plus to teachers as it brings the best of both systems. Moodle for all their LMS capabilities and LAMS for its ability to create, reuse and run learning sequences with students.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: Jonathan Maybaum

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Ernie,
I think that the heart of the question was:

What features or capability does LAMS provide that are not present in Moodle sequencing. When I spoke about LAMS here (University of Michigan), a similar question was raised, with regard to Sakai sequences/modules. People are understandably cautious about deploying additional services without clearly identifying the added value that they provide.

While I don't know anything about Moodle sequences, I thought that an important aspect of LAMS that is unusual (perhaps unique) is the Monitoring environment.

I do think that it would be helpful to those who might want to advocate for LAMS to have a clear analysis that compares it to module/sequence functionality in LMS systems.

--Jon Maybaum

Posted by Jonathan Maybaum

By: Atif Rasheed

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Thank you Ernie for your brief and yes I am currently looking into lessons on your demo site to get an overview.
First cut observation is that YES, LAMS is offering a lot of value add as I have also created few sample lesson plans using Moodle native activity module. LAMS seems quite powerful in workflow and interface, but like Jonathan said it would be great if we can actually add the real differentiators on LAMS portal.

btw, I have seen branches concept in LAMS authoring environment but decision making is probably missing where I can decide activity flow based on Quiz or Assessment results. Please note it's available in Moodle native lesson activity where I can decide course of lesson based on grades.

Posted by Atif Rasheed

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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btw, I have seen branches concept in LAMS authoring environment but decision making is probably missing where I can decide activity flow based on Quiz or Assessment results. Please note it's available in Moodle native lesson activity where I can decide course of lesson based on grades.

Yes, you can do results based branching or tool output branching.

There's four types of branching in LAMS:

• Learner choice
• Teacher choice
• Group-based branching
• Tool output based branching

I hope this helps.

Thanks,

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: Atif Rasheed

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Thanks Ernie, appreciate your help.
This is a great feature indeed.

Posted by Atif Rasheed