Forum LAMS Lounge Forum: Re: Re: Re: Thoughts from users at the University of Sheffield

If you think of a LAMS’ sequence, as I did initially, as a tool for constructing a whole program of work, then its limitations and lack of flexibility in terms of moving back and forth are immediately evident. I tended to construct sequences that were too long and too complex. LAMS doesn’t work like WebCT, Moodle or Blackboard etc, and it wasn’t created to be like one of these systems. A single LAMS sequence is better for a discrete set of connected activities – as student-centred as the author wants to make them.

Once I began thinking about LAMS as a tool that I could use to link and enable smaller activities, I started to see where the system came into its own.

For example, in a face to face tutorial I am preparing, which combines LAMS activities and traditional in-class activities, I will at times be didactic and give students information and instructions (set up the learning context), then set them to freely undertake their own work, often co-creating original resources that will be shared in some way with the whole class. For some of these activities I will expect students to go back and revise their answers before sharing with others. Other times we will just move on, without re-editing, but using that previous work as a basis for reflection and further conceptual understanding. You can use LAMS to help facilitate this tutorial model online or in a blended setting. The trick is not to think that you can do everything in LAMS (version 1 or 2).

Being able to move around more freely in LAMS will be great, and branching will be a very useful feature. But I think that by conceiving of each LAMS’ sequence as a tool for smaller activities you get far more out of the system. The best way to understand this is to see student-centred, student driven examples in use.

Posted by Robyn Philip