QOTD: Patrick Lambe on elearning systems

From Patrick Lambe: Why Elearning Systems Will Never Rule the World

Elearning pageturners deserve all the cheating they can get. This model of technology-assisted “self” directed learning is at least half a century old.

QOTD: Hal Meeks on educational technology

This was picked from an email by Hal Meeks to our TLTR mailing list in reaction to this post from the Chronicle of Higher Education: Is E-Learning Forever Trapped in a Field of Dreams?

There are many more serious problems facing higher education. Use of
technology illustrates some of these problems, as is the willingness
to blame technology and its misapplication. It is akin to blaming a
cell phone for a boring conversation.

The open source LMS dominoes start to fall

Another major university says goodbye to the closed source, and proprietary world of commercial Learning Management Systems. This time LSU. From eLiterate:

On Saturday, November 3rd, MoodleRooms Michael Penny reported that Louisiana State University would be moving to the Moodle Learning System. LSU is a Major research university enrolling more than 30,000 students, including more than 1,600 international students, and nearly 5,000 graduate students. LSU has more than 1,200 full-time faculty members and a staff of more than 3,000.

Nintendo DS Lite: I want one for Christmas

I don't know that I've ever clicked through on an ad before, but this morning something about Jamsessions caught my eye. It's a game that turns the Nintendo DS Lite into a guitar simulator. Check out the Producer Walk-Through 2 video for a taste. They plan to let people submit their own videos as well. That's a great marketing idea.

It's not available until September. I'm not a "delayed satisfaction gratification" sort of person, but I might be able to wait until Christmas. Hmmm, I'm already waiting until Christmas for my iPhone.

I don't think this is a frivolous toy for people who can't play the guitar. I could see it being an easier and faster way to decipher tabs, and compose music. It'd also be way easier to take on a plane. It could make an interesting companion device for someone learning to play the guitar.

Might someone else in my family want one? I'm always needing ideas...

This is not a Facebook post...

Not wanting to break my observance of Facebook Free Week, I'm declaring up front that this is not a Facebook post. This has nothing to do with Facebook, but everything to do with a philosophy of putting the learner in the center of a Learning Management System. It is more learner-centered to take the content to the learner than the learner to the content: Roll your own LMS with Facebook

Getting tired of the Learning Management System on your campus? Ever look to see how infrequently your students actually log in to see their assignments etc? Let me tell you, it’s pretty darn infrequently. So why not create a course site on a social network where they already live? Facebook now has several apps that make a near perfect course management system. Use “Courses”, a file sharing app, and a chat app and you’ve got every tool in Blackboard on a site that doesn’t go down, isn’t so bland that it puts you and your students asleep, and actually offers collaborative resources that BB can’t provide (oh and you’re not supporting a company which caters to administrators rather than instructors and students but that’s my personal grudge).

This makes too much sense, and I'm surprised more faculty aren't jumping all over this strategy. The only thing that would make this better is if these learning opportunities were being made available in something like Elgg. We desperately need neutral systems where the content is not owned by the application provider.

Using your Wiimote in Second Life

MIT research fellow David Stone is developing some interesting manipulative learning environments for Second Life using the Wiimote as the interface: Second Life Wiimote Training:

Take the innumerable possibilities present in the world of Second Life and combine them with the motion-sensing capabilities of the Nintendo Wiimote, and what do you get? If you're MIT research fellow David E. Stone, you get a highly customizable training simulator. Calling the controller "one of the most significant technology breakthroughs in the history of computer science," Stone is using the Wiimote in conjunction with Second Life to create training simulators for companies such as Orkin Pest Control. Companies that classically have trouble finding training methods the truly engage the user. Within the world of Second Life the company could potentially run employees through checking a house for moisture or mixing chemicals.

That is pretty cool, but "one of the most significant technology breakthroughs in the history of computer science"? That's a tad over-the-top.

I spent months earlier this year trying to score a Wiimote, was finally successful, and did do some playing with it in Second Life. I got it to work in nothing flat, but found that I was having to take my hands from the Wiimote back to the keyboard to issue commands a tad too often. Perhaps if i was immersed in a specific learning environment, optimized for the Wiimote, that wouldn't be necessary. Most of my keyboard interaction had to do with navigation and communication, and I found it just a tad too cumbersome.

I might have to dust-off the Wiimote and try it again. I see they are up to version 0.5 of the DarwinRemote application. I was using version 0.1a. I'm going to write Brown to see if I can visit some of his locations. I do remember it being kind of fun, and the potential for learning that involves the manipulation of objects is large. You can't do this sort of stuff in an LMS.

My top ten tools

Jane Hart from the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies has been collecting the "favourite tools of a number of e-learning professionals". My list appears here: Kevin's Top Ten Tools. It was a hard exercise. I would have liked to have added a few more.

I've been poking through several people's lists and have added several items to my list of tools to explore. There are also many that I have used in the past, but that have just never stuck. I need to try some of these again. I've noticed that it's a rare tool that I will use just a few times and say, "This is it!" Some of my most important tools have taken me months of occasional use before I've had that "ahhh hah!" moment.

Ooohhhh Slideshare just got more interesting...

Slideshare just added synchronized audio. Now it's much more than sharing slide shows, it's a learning environment. Screencasting for the masses? This is way easier than having to deal with video and video screen captures. This can be done by everyone. Check it out at Learn Online: Slideshare finally does it!

The future of learning environments?

From Dave Tosh at Eduspaces: A shared learning environment

Over the past 3-4 years there has been enough of a movement growing to convince me that the era of the CMS/VLE is coming to an end. I don't think all of the functionality they afford will disappear but the idea of a monolithic approach to elearning environments is seriously dated - Wolfgang Greller voices his concerns and Graham Attwell mentioned this a couple of years ago! - and the sooner we can move away from this paradigm, the better.

The more I play with Elgg the more I like it.

ISA vs HASA learning makes total sense to me

Mike Caulfield has a great post: ISA, HASA, and the Inverted LMS. He starts off talking about linguistics, and I was oh so close to bailing when I came to this:

So it’s no surprise that the modern LMS developed under what I would call a “container model”. We “upload files to” it. We have discussions “in” it. And if the “outside world” needs to see something “in there”, we give them “access”.

And the students? Well, they’re “in there” too. At least the piece of the student that belongs to that class is. You know, the English major slice. The part of the student that is a science minor is in another box, and the part of a student that is looking for a job or hanging out with friends doesn’t have a box at all.

That pretty much says it all in regard to the LMS. They aren't about the student, they are about the instructor -- making the instructor's life easier. With syndication and other technologies they don't have to be done this way anymore. It's the CBS vs USA Today strategy played out in an educational context.

What if we moved from the container model to the tagging/syndication model, and instead of uploading something into the ENG 331A box, we kept it on the student’s own site and tagged it as being relevant to his ENG 331A class and say, his professional portfolio? And maybe tagged it as a submission to the Academic Excellence Conference as well?

It's all about where you place the focus. We talk a good line about being "student centered" but the values embedded in the old line tools don't embrace that philosophy. Mike concludes:

Once again, in a student-centered LMS, the student contains part of the class rather than the class containing part of the student.

Dang that sounds nice!

No justifying roles...

Wow, Dave Tosh at Eduspaces nails it: Breaking the habit of system defined roles

The answer is no we didn't forgot - roles being absent is very much a conscious design decision. I don't think there is any place for this type of imposed hierarchy in any learning environment, talk about a sure fire way to suppress creativity, free thinking and open discussion.

Okay, Elgg has got my attention.

E-learning organizations

More from Harold Jarche, this time on the strategic opportunities of organizations with education as their mission:

Let’s say that you are an elearning company:

• Should you focus on developing content? Apparently not.
  
• Should you provide a learning portal or sell learning objects? Probably not a good investment.
  
• Should you find ways to connect people and address their learning and performance needs? Yes.

If connecting people is your mission where should you be investing your resources? What does your strategy look like?

QOTD: Liberty Hyde Bailey

From Liberty Hyde Bailey, May 1908:

expertise should be "on tap, not on top."

I thought this was a fitting quote as we prepare to do our first in-world training in Second Life today. Our island on the youth grid is named Bailey for a reason.

QOTD: Quincy Smith

From Quincy Smith the president of CBS Interactive as quoted in the Wall Street Journal:

We can't expect consumers to come to us. It's arrogant for any media company to assume that.

I've been sitting on this quote for a few weeks, but it seemed like a good day to roll-it-out. I've been reading some blog posts about yesterday's UNIVERSITY – Knowledge Beyond Authority conference at the Berkman Center. It got me to thinking that the quote had applicability far beyond just media outlets. Could we not substitute "learners" for "consumers" and "educational institution" for "media company" and still have a pretty good quote?

Murphy's Law and the technology educator

I'm convinced that no one understands Murphy's Law better than people who mediate learning through technology. Beth Kanter has a great post on a presentation she did yesterday: Reflections on Extension 2.0 Webinar where just about every technology that could fail did fail. Of course, none of the things that went wrong were under Beth's control, but she handled each of them like a Zen master. In spite of the technical problems her presentation went extremely well.

I'm thinking Beth needs to work-up a new seminar on, "Tips for Dealing with Technology Meltdowns for Presenters." I know I learned a ton watching her presentation, and not all the learning was about Web 2.0. She's most definitely raised the bar for me going forward.

ISTE presentation on Suffern Middle School

Maggie Marat (aka Peggy Sheehy in RL) gave a very informative presentation last night at the ISTE Skypark on her experiences in creating Ramapo Islands for the Suffern Middle School in Second Life. It's just amazing to me how good these presentations can be when the mode of communication is slides and chat. There is something about attending these events having all the avatars sitting around that makes it so much richer. I'm not sure why that is but it flat-out works.

At the Skypark they have some interesting cubes for attendees to sit. They contain an animation that allows you to raise your hand when you have a question. Here's a snapshot of me asking a question last night:

Here is my favorite quote from the presentation:

[18:41] Maggie Marat: we have had very few issues with behavior and only 1 student out of 400 had to be banned for a week (those watermelon launchers were a bad idea)

Second Life is so much fun! I hope the good folks at Suffern MS fully appreciate what a gem they have in Maggie Marat.

Second Life International Conference to be held inworld

This Second Life International Conference: Best Practices in Teaching, Learning and Research is being held at a number of SL inworld locations:

The conference will be held on May 25, 2007 in venues all over the Second Life world, with exciting presentations, vendors and exhibitors, and everything an educator needs to know to get started exploring the possibilities for teaching, learning, and research in Second Life!

I'll be attending for sure. I'm still thinking about whether to do a presentation. It's a pretty short deadline...

Linden to open source Second Life

From Information Week blogger Mitch Wagner:

Linden Lab plans to open up the source code for Second Life's servers, allowing anyone to run their own version of Second Life, a company spokesman said today, confirming the widespread belief among many in the 3D community that open-sourcing the servers was inevitable.

I'm glad I got this one right. I have had some conversations with people, however, that don't think this move is all that positive. People trust Linden to do the right thing, as I do, but they fear that open sourcing the server will feed educators' desires (tendencies, obsessions?) with creating walled gardens. Not a trivial concern at all.

This worries me too, but I think the positives outweigh any potential negatives. It's risky having the control of such an important application in the hands of a single entity no matter how virtuous. Opening it up will spur massive innovation. Finally, if Second Life is going to scale it's going to require an infrastructure so large that controlling it isn't possible.

So I'm declaring this a good thing, and will prepare to fight the openness battles in academia once again.

Another government agency wasting your tax dollars in Second Life (snark on)

Government Computing News has an interesting read on the Department of Homeland Security's plans for a training environment in Second Life: Big brother is watching you?

Before the paranoid run and hide, they are considered to be using it for first response planning and training sessions. Like so many organisations the DHS training programmes is in partnership with individuals, companies and agencies from around the world, and SL provides a cheap (not to mention carbon-friendly way) to get these people together regularly. In addition the DHS plans a huge range of disaster contingencies on table-top exercises. These involve a lot of people travelling for a significant amount of time, and a fair amount of wasted time resetting the situation. Having a private island with roll-back facilities and it's a matter of a few clicks, and less travel, and so more efficient training.

It's not only about "big" situations either. In SL it's easy enough to get a team, say firefighters battling biohazard spills, and run them through the planned responses to see how well they work. It won't ever replace the real thing, but it lets you catch any howling errors without putting people's life at risk.

How cool is that? It's nice to see that we have some progressive thinkers in our Federal government.

QOTD: Wayne Mackintosh

Found on the WikiEducator site in preparation for the Tectonic shift think tank meeting to identify the transformation opportunities for Mediawiki and related FLOSS technologies for eLearning:

All you need for the future of eLearning is free content, Mediawiki and Google

There is also an excellent contributed article by Wayne Mackintosh on the Terra Incognita blog at Penn State that is definitely worth a read.