Will LMS Companies Ever Get Into Browser Plug-ins?

I was pondering Learning Management Systems this morning. I do that way too much.  Maybe Google Wave will get released soon and it really will be able to deliver on the hype and all my problems will be solved!  But until then… got to ponder….

FireFox plug-ins are pretty nifty little deals.  And many of them have educational uses.  A few more are even totally educational in nature.  But I wonder if LMS programmers will ever get into the business of making plug-ins that will enhance their products?  Have some done that already and I just missed it?

Yeah, I know that would force people to use a specific browser.  But just imagine if the concept of plug-in goes universal and all browsers end up being able to use the same plug-ins interchangeably for a moment….

Because I am thinking we are really going to need this – like yesterday.  I checked around for a plagiarism checker – one like “Map This“, where you just highlight some text and click “check for plagiarism” – and couldn’t find one.  I found a couple of dead links to some here and there, so maybe it is out there and just hard to find.

Because, let’s face it – going EduPunk or GoogleWave or what not with your class would mean that you might not be able to check that cool blog post against your plagiarism software.  Or maybe you can.  But wouldn’t it be nice to to integrate it with your browser instead?

Or what about designing your LMS to work with existing plug-ins like Zotero?

There are probably a hundred different ways to create plug-ins specifically for online courses.  Is there someone out there doing this, and I just haven’t searched enough?

Random thought that hit me today…

3 thoughts on “Will LMS Companies Ever Get Into Browser Plug-ins?

  1. I had to go look that one up – and yep, it received some pretty bad reviews. One and a half star average after 2462 reviews. Ouch – that is the average!

    I search for other LMS’s on the iPhone, and have come up empty so far. One does say that it can post content to Moodle. Look for the Educate app from ikonstrukt.com. It costs $7 and only has 2 reviews (one good, one slightly bad).

    But – that would be another issue to ponder. Will we see any good LMS apps for the exploding SmartPhone market?

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