Forum Higher Ed & Training Forum: Re: Communities of practice

By: Neal Hirsig

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This is a very interesting discussion that hasn’t been added to for 3 years (which is actually the whole point of the topic) so I thought I would add my 2-cents.

I think the reason there is little traffic on a community forum such as this is because most higher education institutions have their own local support structures like Academic Technology or Information Technology that faculty depend upon for guidance in using teaching and learning applications. Professors rarely venture outside that local support comfort zone for help.

Also, (and I really, really hate to be the one to point this out) LAMS is doing itself no favors with the higher education community by using the “Dolly” lamb character in its promotional materials and documentation. Seriously. Tenured Physics professors see the Dolly character and the first thing that pops into their mind is “K-12”; and they tend to dismiss LAMS out-of-hand as not being sophisticated enough for use in higher education. There are thousands of commercial K-12 learning applications we see advertised daily and they all have some cute Muppet-like character associated with it. For those of us that have looked beyond the character and have discovered LAMS to be not only sophisticated in its design and functionality but revolutionary in its concept, just have this extra burden to overcome in an effort to gain widespread acceptance within our university.

Posted by Neal Hirsig