The Post-LMS Era
The idea of a Post-LMS Era is a very appealing one.
I have spent way too much time on committees the past 10 years reviewing and considering learning management systems (LMS). They play a big part in higher education and almost take over discussions about online learning.
As Jonathan Mott notes in his EDUCAUSE article, a Delta Initiative report indicates that more than 90 percent of colleges and universities have a standardized, institutional LMS implementation. LMS issues are seen as the "most pressing IT issues."
Those issues break down into adoption and acquisition strategies, adapting the LMS to local needs, managing costs and maintaining system stability and integrity. And with all the considerations lately about changing an institution's LMS - especially with open source products like Moodle growing in popularity - the portability of course content to a new LMS and integrating LMSs with other campus tools and data is a huge concern.
Despite the increased use of other web tools for communication, productivity, and collaboration (like blogs, microblogs, wikis, social networks etc.), the commercial LMS (like Blackboard) still dominates.
Certainly, personal learning networks (PLNs) and personal learning environments (PLEs) do "represent a shift away from the model in which students consume information through independent channels such as the library, a textbook, or an LMS, moving instead to a model where students draw connections from a growing matrix of resources that they select and organize (Weinberger)," but they have not made a significant impact on LMS use as of yet.
The many PLE diagrams collected online show that the "personal" nature of these configurations means that there are many variations.
Is it currently, as Mott suggests, an "either/or" situation for teachers, students, and administrators? Is it possible to strike a balance between the two?
What seems more important than deciding on a platform is avoiding using either just to be "pointing students to data buckets and conduits we’ve already made for them (Gardner Campbell)."
Mott's post-LMS era follows an "open learning network" (OLN) model that leverages the open architecture of the web. It's not the LMS
and PLE working together, but a mashup into a third platform.
Any predictions on when such an era might arrive?
I have spent way too much time on committees the past 10 years reviewing and considering learning management systems (LMS). They play a big part in higher education and almost take over discussions about online learning.
As Jonathan Mott notes in his EDUCAUSE article, a Delta Initiative report indicates that more than 90 percent of colleges and universities have a standardized, institutional LMS implementation. LMS issues are seen as the "most pressing IT issues."
Those issues break down into adoption and acquisition strategies, adapting the LMS to local needs, managing costs and maintaining system stability and integrity. And with all the considerations lately about changing an institution's LMS - especially with open source products like Moodle growing in popularity - the portability of course content to a new LMS and integrating LMSs with other campus tools and data is a huge concern.
Despite the increased use of other web tools for communication, productivity, and collaboration (like blogs, microblogs, wikis, social networks etc.), the commercial LMS (like Blackboard) still dominates.
Certainly, personal learning networks (PLNs) and personal learning environments (PLEs) do "represent a shift away from the model in which students consume information through independent channels such as the library, a textbook, or an LMS, moving instead to a model where students draw connections from a growing matrix of resources that they select and organize (Weinberger)," but they have not made a significant impact on LMS use as of yet.
The many PLE diagrams collected online show that the "personal" nature of these configurations means that there are many variations.
Is it currently, as Mott suggests, an "either/or" situation for teachers, students, and administrators? Is it possible to strike a balance between the two?
What seems more important than deciding on a platform is avoiding using either just to be "pointing students to data buckets and conduits we’ve already made for them (Gardner Campbell)."
Mott's post-LMS era follows an "open learning network" (OLN) model that leverages the open architecture of the web. It's not the LMS
and PLE working together, but a mashup into a third platform.
Any predictions on when such an era might arrive?
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