Forum LAMS for Tech-Heads - General Forum: Re: Scorm

By: James Dalziel

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I few more ideas on LAMS and SCORM (it seem appropriate to comment on this, as I'm at the SCORM Stewardship conference in Melbourne today!):

(1) I don't think it is possible to "package" a LAMS sequence as a SCORM object (SCO) or course, as they make different assumptions about e-learning: SCORM is a content-centric single-learner model of e-learning; whereas LAMS is an activity-centric multi-learner model. There is no way (that I can see) to make multi-learner tasks in LAMS (such as Forum, Chat, Q&A, etc) "run" within the SCORM RTE, as SCORM wasn't built for multiple learners interacting together.

While the "SCORM is not for everyone" debate now seems to have past, you can see some interesting discussion of SCORM and education at http://www.cetis.ac.uk/content/20021002000737
including a very early post from me on the work that led to LAMS
http://www.cetis.ac.uk/content/20021002000737/20021028013942

On the other hand, SCORM is excellent for single-learner content. At today's conference sessions we've talked alot about training for changing landing gear on planes, and I must say that I'd prefer an appropriate SCORM content object to teach this topic than a content-free discussion sequence in LAMS ("what do you think about changing langing gear?", "oh, I don't know, how do you feel about it?" ...ugh).

(2) In LAMS V1.1 (or soon after), we hope to have a SCORM 1.2 delivery tool to complement the IMS CP delivery tool. So this would allow you to run a SCORM object or course inside a LAMS sequence (so, you could have a content object about changing landing gear, perhaps followed by some collaborative tasks to discuss unexpected problems and different strategies for solving them).

(3) A bit further into the future, I'd love to see a SCORM 2004 authoring tool built into LAMS that uses the drag and drop features of our Flash authoring interface combined with the hard stuff from IMS Simple Sequencing to create a visual sequencing tool for content objects. Again, this would then run as one tool inside a LAMS sequence (although the authoring process for this tool would be different from others - I imagine it would pop open a new drag and drop authoring environment for SCO sequencing - perhaps with a black background and round objects to distinguish it visually from the current activity authoring environment of white background, square activities).

Posted by James Dalziel