As Blackboard swallows yet another LMS competitor I wonder if commercial learning management systems are still relevant as a classroom technology? They can be a convenient way for the faculty member to distribute class materials, or collect assignments. But do they have a future in the classroom? There was some discussion on this point at the Future of Everything Nercomp workshop.
Alex Chapin from Middlebury gave a talk on the future of learning management systems. He sees the monolithic course management system going away, being replaced by a central service infrastructure that provide authentication, group management, and storage and server functionality. The learning tools will be a combination of wikis, blogs, and other lightweight applications, pulled together to meet the specific needs of individual classes. Syndication, through a mechanism such as RSS will be a glue to hold these all together, and share content to the larger learning community. And as external services like Google Apps can link to external authentication such as LDAP, or OpenID, these systems will integrate services hosted off campus.
In a blog post Jon Mott argues that students need to be focused on connecting to fellow learners both on and off campus. The mix of tools they use need to reflect real-world practices. What needs to change is not the technology, but the paradigm of the closed and managed classroom space. An outward, authentic, real world focus, facilitated by a loosely coupled mix of technologies, is what our learners need.
At the moment deploying a mix of tools, such as WordPress for one class, and a MediaWiki for another class, can make you feel like a juggler with one too many balls in the air. For the classroom support person a central LMS can be a welcome fallback. What I want to see is movement towards a set of standards and a structure that eases the user management and content integration issues. With technologies such as RSS and OpenID maturing the tool sets are coming together. Maybe Blackboard will be able to provide this platform — but I’m not betting on it.
The End in Mind » A Post-LMS Manifesto
…we must leave the LMS behind and the artificial walls it builds around arbitrary groups of learners who have enrolled in sections of a courses at our institutions. In the post-LMS world, we need to worry less about “managing” learners and focus more on helping them connect with other like-minded learners both inside and outside of our institutions.
Synch Google Apps User Accounts to your LDAP System
Google Apps Directory Sync lets businesses and schools with an LDAP user directory system like Microsoft Active Directory or Lotus Domino transition more quickly and smoothly to Google Apps. Instead of manually maintaining a separate user account directory in Google Apps, this utility lets Google Apps tap into an existing repository of user account information.
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Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
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