Forum LAMS Newsletter: Newsletter 28, 21st May, 06

By: James Dalziel

[ Forward ]

LAMS at Glenorie Public - Case Study and Interview

Glenorie Public is a primary school (K-6) on the outskirts of Sydney that is using LAMS extensively with both students and their parents. Karen Baskett from LAMS has just posted a case study about Glenorie - see http://www.lamscommunity.org/dotlrn/clubs/educationalcommunity/k12schools/forums/message-view?message%5fid=229611
and during this coming week, Karen will be interviewing Debbie Evans (Glenorie's Principal) about the school's experience of using LAMS.

Here are some extracts from the case study:

"The Glenorie teachers have been using LAMS in a variety of interesting ways which include;
- A synchronous environment at the school in both a computer laboratory and in the classroom. This is combined with the use of Smartboards.
- Homework sequences, where students work asynchronously,
- Creating online parent discussion communities,
- Completing the annual Department School report"

and

"The students are highly motivated to complete their homework sequences using LAMS. They are often finished by Tuesday and students that are away from school through illness are still eager to complete their homework. When students no longer had to be pushed to do their homework but were begging to get on the computer, parents began asking what LAMS was all about."

and

"I [Karen] asked Debbie what had been the main benefits that she perceived using LAMS. She answered, the ability to get in anytime to check the progress of the students and if necessary to get in early and find out why there were problems and try to help resolve these. She also loves the opportunities for collaboration that LAMS has provided."

There's much more in the case study, and the interview is sure to be very interesting. Thanks to Debbie and her colleagues for their inspiring work with LAMS, and for taking the time this week to tell us more about it. You can find some great sequences by Debbie and Karen May in the K-12 area of the LAMS Community repository. Thanks also to Karen for helping with the case study and interview.

Sun Distro Licence for Java

Sun have announced a new distribution licence for including JDK (the Java system needed to run LAMS) with Linux distributions - see http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2006-05/sunflash.20060516.4.xml

This will help make it easier in the future to distribute LAMS together with accompanying systems needed for easy installation. Sun have also announced plans to release Java itself as open source software in the future. Both announcements are great news for LAMS and for many similar open source systems that rely on Java - thanks Sun!

Posted by James Dalziel