Forum Articles and Presentations about LAMS: Presentation on Education IT architectures - including future of LMS

By: James Dalziel

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Attached is a presentation I gave for a recent Macquarie Unviersity seminar about general Education IT architectures. It starts with an overview of the projects running at MELCOE, then goes on to a high level architecture review that will be familiar to anyone who's been working on this area, such as IMS AF, OKI, E-Framework and other SOA-based approaches.

From slide 23 and onwards, I briefly describe my vision for one possible future of learning platforms/LMSs. This was originally developed during discussion at Oxford in October/November 2004. In this vision, the LMS is replaced by three interlinked systems:
(1) Sophisticated portal (for all the course admin/management, including email, announcements, calendar, etc)
(2) Content management/repository system, and
(3) Learning Activities system (which can do Learning Design-like flows of activites, but also provide "stand alone" activity tools like Forum Chat, etc - to sit in the course area managed by the portal; as well as student led social software tools like blogs, wikis, etc).
The choice of these three interlinked systems (each in a sophisticated form), could provide richer functionality than a single LMS.

Key to this view is that all three components should offer a "teacher led" and "student led" view of this functionality to suit the needs of both structured teaching, and informal collaboration and learning. So for Learning Activities, you have teacher structured Learning Designs on one hand, but also a suite of "social software" student-led tools like blogs, wikis, etc on the other side (and the ability to link between approaches). The combination means a teacher could create a sequence that has some structured tasks for all students to introduce a topic, then a section where students are invited to solve a problem in groups using whatever tools they wish to from the student area, so long as they complete the teacher sequence with their answer to the problem. This example shows an interesting mix of teacher-led structured learning, combined with student led choice in collaborative modes (using whatever tools suit their needs).

The alternative future for learning platforms, in my view, is that the LMS grows to consume all the features described above, and provides them within a single system. In this view, Learning Design becoming an important new part of the platform of the future (as do the social software "unstructured" tools to complement the teacher led Learning Designs).

*I know a really need to write more on this topic, but I wanted to get this rough cut out until I have a chance to do it properly.

Posted by James Dalziel

By: Jeffrey Earp

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Hi James and fellow members,

thanks James for providing this opportunity for dialogue between all those interested in LAMS and learning design in general. I belong to an Italian research group involved in a project related to learning design, with a particular interest in the pedagogical dimension of learning scenarios. I've been having a look at LAMS and the (much appreciated) presentations you've posted here in the forum and I have a first question for you. When you mention the possibility of including in sequences the use of stand alone software, you mention tools such as wikis, blogs, etc. Do you also have in mind stand alone educational software that is not necessarily browser based? The reason I ask is that we are involved in a project in which learning scenarios will be centred around the use of stand alone applications such as educational spreadsheets for maths.
Thanks,
Jeff.

Posted by Jeffrey Earp

By: James Dalziel

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Hi Jeff,

LAMS is browser based to make it as easy as possible for people to get started with using LAMS - I've seen too many great educational software packages held back by local security restrictions which stop people downloading and installing desktop software.

Nonetheless, we're keen to see the use of both web-based and desktop activities with LAMS. One example I've already seen is using the Share Resources tool to provide mind-mapping files that can be downloaded to the desktop, then opened in a desktop mind-mapping software system, then later students can save the modified file, and upload this back into Share Resources where other students can view it, etc.

If the browser has been set to recognise the relevant file type on download, it can even open the software directly into the browser window - I've seen this work with Word, Excel, PDF and the mind mapping software I mentioned.

The limitation to be aware of here is that browsers have certain security features to stop them from doing too much on the desktop of users - so this may be a limitation in certain cases. In the future, it may be possible to build some special LAMS interfaces (either through technologies such as ActiveX; or a web-services based non-browser alternative to interacting with LAMS - this could be similar to some of the OKI OSID work with desktop applications). However, I think this is some way off, and the simple options I've mentioned above work quite well in practice once they are set up, and students know what to do.

Posted by James Dalziel

By: kenneth wyrick

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Hi I'm using the http://e-lane.org/pub livecd booted on my local computer while accessing this forum. I'd like to view the .ppt presentation but i think the file name does not have .ppt file extention (even though it has the .ppt in the file title) so it's not recognized by the open office system.

I realize that .ppt is a standard format but I'd very much like to see more presentations in html and wimpy point so that they can be viewed more widely.

thanks!

Posted by kenneth wyrick

By: Peter Miller

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First TiddlyWiki and now Wimpy Point... not sure I'm ready for all this whimsicality in my software!

Seriously though, I have had a student who positively cooed with delight at being asked to use TiddlyWiki so it's probably me (and LAMS) that's out-of-step name-wise.

I guess it's hard to argue against the inevitability of what James is suggesting, not least because many influential people are pushing in that general direction. The metaphor "knitting with spaghetti" does keep coming to mind though.

Posted by Peter Miller