Morris Pelzel's Library tagged lms → View Popular

how the design and use of a CMS affects pedagogy, and instructors rarely discuss how a CMS affects their teaching. With the emergence of new learning management systems and virtual learning environments based on alternative pedagogy, and the advent of Web 2.0 applications such as blogs, wikis, and social networking, one thing has become clear: the standardized nature of integrated commercial systems is limiting pedagogy.
As products marketed to institutions to help them integrate resources, they are designed along the lines of inventory control or commercial enterprise applications. Decisions about which learning software to use on campus are often made by campus technologists and administrators rather than faculty
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- Because their purpose is to manage resources (content, class enrollments, assessments), the applications are based on managerial and administrative tasks centered on instructor efficiency: gradebook, test creation, threaded discussion, rosters, and instructor-student messages. Indeed, many instructors never move beyond these basic uses, despite the many interactive features course management systems now offer. Why?
- The preset organization encourages novice instructors to "plug in" their content under the appropriate category instead of effectively translating their individual teaching styles into an online environment.
- The focus on presentation (written documents to read), complemented by basic "discussion" input from students, is based on traditional lecture, review, and test pedagogy. This orientation is very different from the development of knowledge through a constructivist, learner-centered, or inquiry-based approach,
- In constructivist pedagogy, the instructor's role is to provide a rich learning environment, which often includes extensive social interaction, self-assessment, and independent projects.

Moving to Moodle: Reflections Two Years Later

connect.educause.edu/...47088 - Preview

LMS

Educational technology practitioners regularly discuss system features, adoption strategies, support services, training, and evaluation.
Outcome-based and cohort-based learning lie at the heart of the curriculum design
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- provide working professionals with an applied education
- The teaching staff of 400 includes 45 core faculty who hold continuing appointments and 350 associate faculty on teaching contracts. The associate faculty are practitioners who bring a wealth of field experiences to RRU's academic programs.
- Centre for Teaching and Educational Technologies (CTET)
- All CTET members participated: five instructional designers and three web developers who collaborate with faculty to develop online courses, two technical trainers who develop and deliver training on how to use the LMS, and one support staff person who checks all courses and learning materials against a set of quality guidelines.
- campaign to bring the key stakeholders on board and ease them into the new Moodle system.
- change agent to the key stakeholders—faculty and learners.
- converting existing course content and importing it into the new system.
- SCORM
- Some courses involved substantial revision to ensure that the content and activities utilized the new tools in Moodle. At a minimum, all courses needed revision in terms of the information structure (texts had to be chunked differently or placed in a different sequence). In other words, all courses had to be reorganized in a way that flowed well in Moodle.
- developing templates to speed up the conversion process
- we estimate that it took at least three times as long to convert a course from the old system into the new system compared with developing the same course in the old system.
- With Moodle, faculty had editing access, which required CTET to modify the course development model (see Figure 2)
- Experimenting with the collaboration model took time. Instructional designers needed to adapt to individual faculty's acceptance levels because some faculty were eager to try the new technology and new ways of doing things, while others were reluctant to change.
- Course design, the course development process, faculty training, and the increased need for communication about changes all became priorities very quickly. Converting courses from one platform to another turned out to be much more than just copying and pasting content—it involved redefining processes and rethinking services. These changes and responsibilities imposed a tremendous strain and increased workload for CTET staff.
- three sets of standards to ensure quality in instructional design, web design, and course presentation
- campus-wide forum to encourage faculty and learners to provide input.
- "What does quality mean to (faculty) or (learners)?" and "Exemplary online courses."
- These tutorials became the backbone of our just-in-time training.
- As for learner and faculty training to use these new tools, online tutorials were a success story. The more we can structure and provide just-in-time training, the better the results. Of course, it takes time to plan and produce training resources. It is important to incorporate this work into the change management plan and devote resources, such as dedicated staff, to implement it.

C.U. Considers Alternative to Blackboard Site

cornellsun.com/31655 - Preview

LMS

28 Oct 08

Next Step for Blackboard and Open Source

insidehighered.com/...moodle - Preview

LMS

24 Oct 08

23 Oct 08

A Bridge Between Blackboard and Open Source?

www.insidehighered.com/...sakai - Preview

LMS

Blackboard gets a 'C-' from open-source leaning education market

news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10034672-16.html - Preview

LMS

Epsilen.com helps connect academics

thedartmouth.com/...print - Preview

LMS

Fusing the appeal of Facebook.com and the practicality of Blackboard, a new website, Epsilen.com, offers campuses a means to network through global academia.
creator Dr. Ali Jafari, professor of computing and information technology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis,
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- Jafari believes that in a fast-paced academic world of research, students and faculty need a network to collaborate with peers at other universities, a characteristic unique to Epsilen, which Blackboard and similar programs cannot offer.
- many flaws in the resume option, noting issues of privacy and practicality.
- anyone with an “.edu” domain e-mail address may sign up
- The notion is that people are mobile … that lifelong access and lifelong ownership is something that must be included in the design of the next generation of a learning environment,” Jafari said.
- Allowing students to maintain their accounts and keep their web pages for life relieves universities of the problems faced in terms of how long to hold on to alumni’s work and accounts on university course management programs.