browsers

Opera Unite Brings In a New Idea Out of Left Field

Okay… scratch my last post.  What if the browser was your LMS?  Think about it – what is the biggest problems with most social networking sites?  Privacy and ownership of content.  Huge battles are being fought over who owns what when you upload it and issues like “how private is your stuff anyways?”  Opera released a new product today called Opera Unite.  The basic idea is that you take control of what you share online because your browser is a web server.

Interesting concept.  You retain all rights and controls over everything you want to share, because it is served up from your computer.  What a crazy thought.

So, what if the browser itself becomes the LMS?  What if the instructor created a bunch of activities that students worked on and then shared back with the class through something like Opera Unite?  The technical details would be crazy to make it work right, but think if it could get to work right?  You would have to authenticate all students and instructors through an official school database, of course.

But this could take our New Vision for Online Learning in a whole new direction.  Just some crazy thoughts.

Also think of combining this idea with Google Wave?

My head hurts from the possibilities….

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…