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A New Vision for Learning Managment Systems (part 4) |
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As much as I have disagreed with the concept of living in flat world (because the world is truly not flat or anywhere close) - I still think that we need to have a flat world goal when looking forward in anything - especially in Instructional Design and the future of the Learning Management System. Not only do we need to find ways to turn the LMS into a hub of collecting student work, but we also need to find ways to get the program to intuitively seek out related content and pull it together for us.
Let's look at blog commenting for example. You post a blog entry, and then people comment on it. Pretty simple - right? How that be imporved? Here's one thought. You have probably seen this happening: someone will quote your blog in their blog, usually by creating their own blog entry for commentary instead of directly commenting on your blog (two examples are here and here - not the first time I have been called Mark). When someone does this, they should leave a trackback link or comment on yours. Howver, so many trackback functions have to be turned off because of spammers (or they are just confusing to figure out). But most people that quote your blog tend to forget to let you know that. They do link to you, of course - and that is all they should need to do.
This is why I use the Google Alerts service to let me know when someone has posted a link to EGJ. It catches some interesting commentary and discussions on our ideas that I would never have known were occurring. With this in mind, my question is: why does it have to matter where comments are made on your blog entries (or any other content you create for that matter)? Wouldn't it be great if any comment made anywhere about something you posted would automatically be pulled in as a comment on your blog? And if you replied to that collected comment - it wouldn't just post on your blog, but the other blog as well? There are some solutions already being worked on out there, and thanks to RSS feeds, tags, Google Alerts, etc, etc - stuff like this can happen. We need something like this in education. But there is no one "killer" system that accomplishes this totally, and then there is that pesky Spam problem.
Come to think of it - there is just so much progress that is hindered because of spammers. I guess it is not cool to suggest the death penalty for anyone, even annoying spamming, huh? Maybe we can just find a deserted island somewhere and the global penalty for spamming would be to cast them on this island - with no electricity or computers. Then they will be begging for the death penalty. Hey - one can dream....
Anyway, there could be some great benefits to education if a system like this could be created. Think of the discussions you could have with other classes at other universities anywhere in the world, and not even have to set anything up officially. Or if you do set something up officially, all you have to say is "go to this blog and comment on their post, making sure you include a link to the post - the program will take care of the rest!" The LMS makes all of the connections for you. You just log in to your blog or wiki or whatever to moderate the comments and then respond where needed and everything goes where it should.
Posted by Matt Crosslin @ 11:12 am |
Tags: LMS New Vision
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Are EduPunks Really the Source of the Problem? |
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If you don't know what EduPunks are - well, you probably are one if you are reading this blog. Or, at least one at heart. We're all probably EduPunks here at EGJ (even though I personally hate the label). We want to bring change to the online education world, and some of us are even advocating leaving Learning Management Systems behind in favor of do-it-yourself classes created in blogs, wikis, and probably a whole slew of Google sites.
In the comments section of my last post on LMS problems, a colleague of mine (Chris) made a comment that got me thinking: why are LMS programs the way they are? The hard reality we EduPunks have to face is that Ed Tech products, just like almost any other tech product, are consumer-driven. They are the way they are - in large part - due to end user demand. Even something as dense as BlackBoard still had someone sitting there saying "our customers want this!" Yes - many got it wrong - but even those that got it wrong sometimes still thought about what customers wanted at some point. And many companies do ask for or at least listen to customer input. Some times customers either just get complacent and satisfied with what they have, or they leave a product or service without saying why (or worse yet, raising a huge stink). If companies think everything is okay with the status quo, they won't change it. And if you rave like a crazed banshee because of something - they probably won't listen either.
But it's those that leave that make companies worry the most. When the powers that be saw the EduPunks leaving the LMS for blogs and wikis and other tools - what do you think they did? "Hey - we need to add those tools to our product!" Instead of seeing these as tools to be connected with, they started seeing them as competitotrs. The sad truth is - EduPunks are probably more responsible for creating the "walled garden" effect than anyone else. The more we leave the LMS behind, the more they are going to try and assimilate what we are leaving for... rather than trying to understand why we are leaving. That's just the way businesses work. They usually want to add more features to an existing product rather than re-think the whole thing from the ground up.
So the battle to change online education tools is really within the confines of the LMS... not as a rebellious outsider. We need to try to win other professors and EdTech people to our cause from the inside. We need a tool that is native to professors (as Chris suggested), that allows them to teach in a way that their learners need to learn. Once the demand is there... once there is enough buzz being generated to get the attention of educational software companies... then we will probably see the changes we need.
Posted by Matt Crosslin @ 12:21 pm |
Tags: LMS, Current Events
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