Hey Everyone,
If you all have any free time this month (sarcasm intended), three really interesting articles have popped up in the last week or so. Per our discussion in Wimba last night, many of you shared concerns that social networking sites are often blocked from you school or campus. This morning, an article came out on Wired reporting on a recent Abilene Christian University suggesting that heavy Facebooking might actually boost student achievement due to the growing support network of friends, family, and even professors that can be cultivated through social networks.
Check it at Wired online here.
Also, NYU has an exciting program developing wherein they will not only be broadcasting video feeds from certain courses to the general public, but enrolled students will be able to review the content in an enhanced form with links, interactive elements, and other content embedded within the student-only video file. It sounds like a really cool process akin to the bonus features found on many popular DVD and Blu-Ray releases.
The Chronicle of Higher Ed has that article here.
Finally, another good technology-will-kill-the-lecture type article is available at the Chronicle as well here. In this case, an interesting debate opens up in the comments section below the article echoing similar issues to what we discussed in Wimba this week as well.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
LMO Wk 3 Blog Post: Reading
LMO Wk 3 Blog Reading
This is all very complicated and I am coming to the conclusion that a topic area like Learning Management Systems and Organization could easily morph into its own year long program. As the previous two weeks have shown, there is a plethora of tools and systems available for not only developing learning content and organizing that that material per the needs of a specific student or institution.
CMS, LMS, and LCMS platforms are all very complex, and their implementation should be made only after considerable discussion from those immediately involved including participants (learners), trainers, administrators, IT staff, and programmers.
Despite the complexity that comes with the depth of functionality within these systems, I really appreciated this week's readings which first helped categorize the different tool sets that might all be leveraged within a larger learning platform. Per the e-learningguru website, authoring or production tools, individual element tools, webcasting and streaming tools, virtual classroom portal and discussion tools, as well as information management and training tools are all critical components in the creation and deployment of content. Seeing these resources broken down into some individual laments helped to clarify not only the tools themselves, but the steps that might have to be taken to go from lesson conception to deployment.
Furthermore, it is no surprise that the other main topic up for discussion this week is assessment. Within one of our first EMDT courses, I believe it was Beth Strugeon who reminded us all that "teaching and learning are two distinct activities". This perspective is critical as we all look to understand the role of technology and how it can effect a student's learning and comprehension.
At least personally, the idea of education and technology could easily be consumed with a singular focus on the exciting digital resources available for media-rich content. As an educator, I can immediately start dreaming up all of the videos, podcasts, and interactive web-enabled elements that would be fun and engaging to distribute within the classroom. However, this attitude is largely focused on my content delivery, or "teaching". Little in this particular subject area concerns "learning" or the actual input, understanding, and synthesis on behalf of the student involved.
Both virtual and physical educational environments demand assessment, otherwise, educators, parents, administrators, and even students have no way to measure true comprehension. What has been learned? How can it be applied? How does this relate to one's life, community, or profession? These are all important questions to carefully consider when developing educational goals and outcomes prior to the blind implementation of an exciting new technology or resource.
Throughout the last 10 years, I've learned (often frustratingly so) that organizations and institutions in higher education move very slowly. However, I believe that this realm is one of those areas wherein any use of new tools should be a deliberate and comprehensive "discussion" between all parties involved.
Like many FSO participants I'm sure, as soon as I was enrolled in this program, I wanted to have a portal as powerful as Full Sail's available to my students. However, it is clear that the development of such resources is a lengthy process which can take nothing short of years. It comes as no real surprise that as Full Sail began developing the custom-built FSO system, they leveraged other online CMS tools in the interim.
Quality work takes time. Developing systems which not only distribute educational content but aid in assessing whether that material is understood by the learner is a significant and time consuming process that demands careful analysis and planning. Thankfully, as a grateful participant currently engaged in the FSO portal, I can whole-heartedly say that these systems can be nothing short of life changing for students if adequate time (and care) is taken.
Tools of the trade. e-learning.com Retrieved August 15th, 2010 from http://www.e-learningguru.com/wpapers/4-Tools.pdf
Learning management systems and organization presents Alicia Murray and Gustavo Hernando. Full Sail University. Retrieved August 15th, 2010 from http://online.fullsail.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=activities.main
Dougiamas, M. (2007). Moodle outcomes in version 1.9. Retrieved August 15th, 2010 from http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=78074
Sunday, August 15, 2010
LMO Wk 2 Project: Udutu Set Up
LMO Wk 2 Udutu Set-up
1. Legere, Christian (Scott)
2. Prior Project: Explaining the Economics of Recording Contracts.
The specifics of recording contracts have confounded generations of musicians and students alike. As a media economics instructor, I talk about contracts and the definitions of their various common clauses every semester. This initial lesson was a brief attempt to clarify some of the essential terms within a typical legal agreement between talent and producer.
3. This project was initially created for Kathy Kraven's course, Digital Media & Education Applications, in April, 2010.
4. For my project, I believe that the Best Practices scenario will work well. As it stands, my lesson is not that complex, and the Best Practices scenario seems to progress naturally from one object to the next. That said, for more informational type lessons, I would be tempted to use the Self-Directed scenario.
5. file:///Volumes/cslegere/Web/Sites/Flash/LeGere_Christian_DAE_Week4.html
1. Legere, Christian (Scott)
2. Prior Project: Explaining the Economics of Recording Contracts.
The specifics of recording contracts have confounded generations of musicians and students alike. As a media economics instructor, I talk about contracts and the definitions of their various common clauses every semester. This initial lesson was a brief attempt to clarify some of the essential terms within a typical legal agreement between talent and producer.
3. This project was initially created for Kathy Kraven's course, Digital Media & Education Applications, in April, 2010.
4. For my project, I believe that the Best Practices scenario will work well. As it stands, my lesson is not that complex, and the Best Practices scenario seems to progress naturally from one object to the next. That said, for more informational type lessons, I would be tempted to use the Self-Directed scenario.
5. file:///Volumes/cslegere/Web/Sites/Flash/LeGere_Christian_DAE_Week4.html
LMO Wk 2 Response 2: Sharon Jones
"In an excellent blog enumerating the many different interpretations of the acronyms, LMS, CMS and LCMS, Don McIntosh discusses the differences between corporate LMS's and those in the educational field. In the corporate sector, the tendency is for an LCMS to be used for tracking an individual learner and specific content. There is rarely an available instructor. The individual learner is basically "check boxing" the content accessed from the elearning site. Within the education field, "content" is frequently replaced by "course." In this model, the educational institution generally already has the basic LMS in place through existing systems. Students have already been registered, and the capabilities exist to monitor their progress. In the education sector, authoring tools from LCMS's are used to build a full educational experience to include content, email, discussions, wikis, blogs, and educational media. An LCMS can be applied, not only to elearning, but also to more traditional face-to-face classes to enhance the learning experience."
Sharon,I think all of us are discovering that indeed, this industry is a complex alphabet soup of acronyms whose meanings can differ from sector to sector. That said, I really appreciated how you were able to differentiate between LMS and CMS platforms in your post this week.
Educational institutions do have different needs than corporate interests. As such, your explanation that while corporations may use a Content Management System, and educational organization would likely leverage a Course Management System to meet their direct needs.
Your explanation helps describe the organizational nature which likely underlies how these two industry groups would aggregate their content. On one hand, that organizational within the business world leads to tracking data and progress for an individual. Instead, the inherent models used in educational settings suggest that data and content is organized around courses and classrooms (virtual and brick-and-mortar).
Thank you for the post. Unraveling the complexities in these systems is valuable to both virtual learning environments, and as you mentioned towards the end of your post, face-to-face environments as well. I think that this is another important element for educators to consider. As we have all defended the validity of online educational systems to some degree throughout the last year in our posts and discussions, it is important to remember that these tools are valuable for ALL classrooms as students, instructors, administrators, and even parents can benefit from access to data, course materials, and additional resources and support.
Well done.
-Scott
LMO Wk 2 Response 1: Jeff Kolhs
This week, Jeff Kohls had a really good post about the overall costs that can exist when implementing an LMS or CMS platform. Jeff's blog can be found here, and below is choice paragraph taken form his post:
"To get an honest view of the complete cost of the LMS/CMS learning systems, companies and educational institutions must look at the whole picture, from conception to fruition, maintenance and sustainability and longevity, while providing up-to-date support and technology."
Jeff,
I don't think you could have summarized the financial considerations when investigating LMS and CMS platforms any better. Your suggestion that institutions work to understand the "whole cost" of a project is critical. I know that within my business dealings, it is often quite easy to forget to address the continual operational or maintenance related costs that might exist within such complex systems.
Earlier this week, I was visiting a colleague's office and noticed that he had a Braniff Airlines poster next to his desk. Out of curiosity, I had to ask what the relevance of a now defunct airline could be for him or his students. He casually asked me what I knew of Braniff, and I responded that they were an airline who refocused their brand image to reflect fun, class, style and an "experience" that was not often found with competitors. Agreeing with my assessment, my friend continued the narrative and explained that they did this without critical regard for the bottom line. The lesson being that a company who was considered a model for the entire industry eventually filed for bankruptcy because they didn't account for all the associated costs which continued to climb, sometimes incrementally, as the airline enhanced everything from their planes, to their uniforms, and their food service.
Similarly, several years ago, my home institution decided to adopt Moodle to support both our faculty and students. This particular platform was chosen almost solely based on the upfront cost of the software. Moodle is an open-source platform and it is essentially free to use and build out individual components and settings tailored specifically for your own institutional needs. This choice was made despite the fact that our sister schools all used Blackboard. From my understanding, the licensing for our school to use Blackboard would have cost tens of thousands of dollars and that was considered too expensive by our immediate managers.
However, without any outside administrative support for Moodle, we had to spend significantly to have several of our faculty and staff learn the Moodle platform in order to train the rest of our employees. Furthermore, Moodle did not have direct integration to our administrative software package, and we had to hire an additional person in the registrar's office to port data back and forth between the two systems. In hindsight, between the cost of training and the subsequent hiring of personnel in both the registrar's office and our IT department, it is now quite apparent that Blackboard would have been less expensive in the long run.
All too often, I believe that societally we forget to analyze the bigger picture when considering purchases. Whether we are discussing the cost of a new iPhone (while ignoring future data costs), a vacation (and omitting the cost of eating out) or educational software purchases (and the continued development costs that can arise from maintenance, licensing, and training), we often forget to think about the TOTAL cost. I agree with your assessment whole-heartedly. This is a lesson not just for educators and administrators, but also our students as they learn to negotiate the myriad costs and expenditures that inevitably arise throughout life.
"To get an honest view of the complete cost of the LMS/CMS learning systems, companies and educational institutions must look at the whole picture, from conception to fruition, maintenance and sustainability and longevity, while providing up-to-date support and technology."
Jeff,
I don't think you could have summarized the financial considerations when investigating LMS and CMS platforms any better. Your suggestion that institutions work to understand the "whole cost" of a project is critical. I know that within my business dealings, it is often quite easy to forget to address the continual operational or maintenance related costs that might exist within such complex systems.
Earlier this week, I was visiting a colleague's office and noticed that he had a Braniff Airlines poster next to his desk. Out of curiosity, I had to ask what the relevance of a now defunct airline could be for him or his students. He casually asked me what I knew of Braniff, and I responded that they were an airline who refocused their brand image to reflect fun, class, style and an "experience" that was not often found with competitors. Agreeing with my assessment, my friend continued the narrative and explained that they did this without critical regard for the bottom line. The lesson being that a company who was considered a model for the entire industry eventually filed for bankruptcy because they didn't account for all the associated costs which continued to climb, sometimes incrementally, as the airline enhanced everything from their planes, to their uniforms, and their food service.
Similarly, several years ago, my home institution decided to adopt Moodle to support both our faculty and students. This particular platform was chosen almost solely based on the upfront cost of the software. Moodle is an open-source platform and it is essentially free to use and build out individual components and settings tailored specifically for your own institutional needs. This choice was made despite the fact that our sister schools all used Blackboard. From my understanding, the licensing for our school to use Blackboard would have cost tens of thousands of dollars and that was considered too expensive by our immediate managers.
However, without any outside administrative support for Moodle, we had to spend significantly to have several of our faculty and staff learn the Moodle platform in order to train the rest of our employees. Furthermore, Moodle did not have direct integration to our administrative software package, and we had to hire an additional person in the registrar's office to port data back and forth between the two systems. In hindsight, between the cost of training and the subsequent hiring of personnel in both the registrar's office and our IT department, it is now quite apparent that Blackboard would have been less expensive in the long run.
All too often, I believe that societally we forget to analyze the bigger picture when considering purchases. Whether we are discussing the cost of a new iPhone (while ignoring future data costs), a vacation (and omitting the cost of eating out) or educational software purchases (and the continued development costs that can arise from maintenance, licensing, and training), we often forget to think about the TOTAL cost. I agree with your assessment whole-heartedly. This is a lesson not just for educators and administrators, but also our students as they learn to negotiate the myriad costs and expenditures that inevitably arise throughout life.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
LMO Wk 2 Blog 1: Readings
LMO Week 2 Blog
I own lots of filing cabinets. I'm not kidding. Seriously. Lots.
Why pray-tell would someone like me need such a bevy of storage capacity? Within these imposing black obelisks lies the readings, transparencies, news articles, and other educational materials I've collected throughout my past decade in the classroom.
Granted, while I might personally tend towards hoarding behavior more than the average person, what else would I do with all of these papers and files?
However, with each passing month here in the EMDT program, I'm starting to learn that there might be a better way. In last week's study materials, Dr. Ian Gibson introduced the acronym of SCORM, or Shared Common Object Reference Model. Only now, while reflecting on the potential of LCMS platforms, am I truly coming to grips with the potential these systems hold and the impact and value that might provide in our careers.
This week, our collective understanding of these systems (CMSs, LMSs, and LCSMs) has been further clarified wherein an LCMS bridges the gap between media development and deployment in concert with the learner focused systems level operational management of an LMS. By combining those feature sets into a single portal, fully developed LCMS options seem to hold quite a bit of both power and convenience. Although I'm sure the programming, design, and deployment of such systems will limit their use to the largest of corporate institutions, universities, or governmental departments.
Yet again, at the center of these complex software systems lies what I perceive as a revolutionary concept: the RLO or "repeatable-learning-object". As we've progressed through our EMDT coursework, we've been introduced to film making, animation and design, podcasting, and blogging. All of these tools, in combination or by themselves, can be utilized to create instructional media elements. Today's $50 one-terabyte drives mitigates any storage concerns, and (I'm finally realizing after 10 months of this program) these instructional elements can be used again, and again, and again.
Honestly, leveraging this type of approach, building an array of interactive and reusable educational media files, would revolutionize my classroom. True, while it can take a significant amount of time to develop digital materials, once a specific lesson or example has been produced, it can easily be stored, recalled, and distributed to learners. Furthermore, organizations often talk about developing "community" and "common language" among staff and faculty in order to develop a compelling call-to-action that excites clients, students, etc. Creating sharable media can help enhance this process. Adding to this process, by developing such materials in-house, institutions and educators are practicing many of the same digital competencies that are likely to be required of students in tomorrow's workplace.
Going back to last week's activities, Dr. Ian Gibson reiterated that these technologies are gaining significant awareness and it is likely that virtually every institution will start to implement either a CMS, LMS, or LCMS. Initially I thought that was an aggressive statement and my interest in these portals was limited. However, today I realize that yes, organizations will adopt such management platforms in hoards because they are efficient, cost-effective, and their digital content (in terms of registration and participant records etc) is likely more secure than individual paper files.
With the likelihood of these systems coming into our classrooms and institutions increasing, we as educators do need to be aware of the features, limitations, and basic configurations of these technologies. And while our abilities to develop media for these platforms will be appreciated, I now realize that it is also critical that we help plan and assess institutional need for these systems as Guillermo Leija warned in the LCMS Roundup article by Ryann Ellis, choosing a system should not be based solely upon that software's feature sets, but on the specific needs of the organization. Clearly, per the e-Learning Center, there are a myriad of new tools to choose from. In making such decisions, we should help our fellow colleagues and administrators choose a product with as much analysis and preparation as well bring into the classroom each morning.
These systems are gaining in popularity. Their use can aid in classroom efficiency and and institutional management. As with any instructional tool, we should carefully analyze the needs of our students and apply the best resources we have at our disposal to excite, engage, and inspire their hopes and dreams. As I've said before, I'm looking forward to returning to the classroom this fall. Everything seems new again and the potential for further reaching out to our young learners to make a meaningful impact in their lives seems to increase with every month in this program.
Thanks everyone, this is exciting- I might not need a new filing cabinet next year.
Ellis, R. K. (2001). LCMS Roundup. Retrieved August 11, 2010 from http://web.archive.org/web/20071012195821/http://www.learningcircuits.org/2001/aug2001/ttools.htm
Gibson, I. LMO Moments: Learning Platform Terminology Mindmap Part 1 and 2, Video, Full Sail University
Learning Light. Course Authoring Tools List. Retrieved August 11, 2010 from http://archive.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/vendors/authoring.htm
I own lots of filing cabinets. I'm not kidding. Seriously. Lots.
Why pray-tell would someone like me need such a bevy of storage capacity? Within these imposing black obelisks lies the readings, transparencies, news articles, and other educational materials I've collected throughout my past decade in the classroom.
Granted, while I might personally tend towards hoarding behavior more than the average person, what else would I do with all of these papers and files?
However, with each passing month here in the EMDT program, I'm starting to learn that there might be a better way. In last week's study materials, Dr. Ian Gibson introduced the acronym of SCORM, or Shared Common Object Reference Model. Only now, while reflecting on the potential of LCMS platforms, am I truly coming to grips with the potential these systems hold and the impact and value that might provide in our careers.
This week, our collective understanding of these systems (CMSs, LMSs, and LCSMs) has been further clarified wherein an LCMS bridges the gap between media development and deployment in concert with the learner focused systems level operational management of an LMS. By combining those feature sets into a single portal, fully developed LCMS options seem to hold quite a bit of both power and convenience. Although I'm sure the programming, design, and deployment of such systems will limit their use to the largest of corporate institutions, universities, or governmental departments.
Yet again, at the center of these complex software systems lies what I perceive as a revolutionary concept: the RLO or "repeatable-learning-object". As we've progressed through our EMDT coursework, we've been introduced to film making, animation and design, podcasting, and blogging. All of these tools, in combination or by themselves, can be utilized to create instructional media elements. Today's $50 one-terabyte drives mitigates any storage concerns, and (I'm finally realizing after 10 months of this program) these instructional elements can be used again, and again, and again.
Honestly, leveraging this type of approach, building an array of interactive and reusable educational media files, would revolutionize my classroom. True, while it can take a significant amount of time to develop digital materials, once a specific lesson or example has been produced, it can easily be stored, recalled, and distributed to learners. Furthermore, organizations often talk about developing "community" and "common language" among staff and faculty in order to develop a compelling call-to-action that excites clients, students, etc. Creating sharable media can help enhance this process. Adding to this process, by developing such materials in-house, institutions and educators are practicing many of the same digital competencies that are likely to be required of students in tomorrow's workplace.
Going back to last week's activities, Dr. Ian Gibson reiterated that these technologies are gaining significant awareness and it is likely that virtually every institution will start to implement either a CMS, LMS, or LCMS. Initially I thought that was an aggressive statement and my interest in these portals was limited. However, today I realize that yes, organizations will adopt such management platforms in hoards because they are efficient, cost-effective, and their digital content (in terms of registration and participant records etc) is likely more secure than individual paper files.
With the likelihood of these systems coming into our classrooms and institutions increasing, we as educators do need to be aware of the features, limitations, and basic configurations of these technologies. And while our abilities to develop media for these platforms will be appreciated, I now realize that it is also critical that we help plan and assess institutional need for these systems as Guillermo Leija warned in the LCMS Roundup article by Ryann Ellis, choosing a system should not be based solely upon that software's feature sets, but on the specific needs of the organization. Clearly, per the e-Learning Center, there are a myriad of new tools to choose from. In making such decisions, we should help our fellow colleagues and administrators choose a product with as much analysis and preparation as well bring into the classroom each morning.
These systems are gaining in popularity. Their use can aid in classroom efficiency and and institutional management. As with any instructional tool, we should carefully analyze the needs of our students and apply the best resources we have at our disposal to excite, engage, and inspire their hopes and dreams. As I've said before, I'm looking forward to returning to the classroom this fall. Everything seems new again and the potential for further reaching out to our young learners to make a meaningful impact in their lives seems to increase with every month in this program.
Thanks everyone, this is exciting- I might not need a new filing cabinet next year.
Ellis, R. K. (2001). LCMS Roundup. Retrieved August 11, 2010 from http://web.archive.org/web/20071012195821/http://www.learningcircuits.org/2001/aug2001/ttools.htm
Gibson, I. LMO Moments: Learning Platform Terminology Mindmap Part 1 and 2, Video, Full Sail University
Learning Light. Course Authoring Tools List. Retrieved August 11, 2010 from http://archive.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/vendors/authoring.htm
Sunday, August 8, 2010
LMO Wk 1 Project 1: Acronym Soup
There is an ancient and oft quoted Chinese "curse" which relays something along the lines of, "may you live in interesting times". As it relates to the rapid development of online classroom management systems, learning management systems, and other similar resources used throughout academia, corporations, and the military, we do live in "interesting" times indeed.
Within the last 18 months alone, I've had to learn to navigate Moodle, ADP's LMS (I thought they just made alarm systems), Campus Vue, Skillsoft, Microsoft's Sharepoint, and Full Sail Online. Now with a new job starting in September, I'm already diving into Sonis, a completely cloud-based CMS, and another company, New Media Training, for a "new employee" Sexual Harassment training exercise.
The diversity and complexity of these systems is astounding and I can't even begin to recall how many key-commands, site maps, and virtual folders I've dug through within this relatively short period of time. Despite this complexity, all of these systems share at least one common and powerful functional trait- they store, display, and distribute information.
In today's business and academic worlds, information is critical. And for such entitles to operate efficiently, sharing much of this information is essential. As an employee, being able to check my remaining annual vacation time in ADP's LMS from my living room is extremely convenient. Prior to the development of such learning management systems (or "learner" systems) I would have to drive across town to the corporate office and schedule an appointment with our HR Director to simply ask her to look up a specific data point. The sharing of that data facilitated by ADP allows both our HR Director and myself to focus on other more important job responsibilities. Furthermore, considering this system tracks my time off usage, neither of us are wasting precious brain space or paper in order to keep track of the dynamic nature that information.
Furthermore, with resources such as Moodle and Blackboard my time management in the classroom as an educator is drastically improved. Instead of spending hours digging through filing cabinets for overhead transparencies or DVDs and scheduling AV installs in my individual classrooms, I can use a CMS to instantly access key multimedia files to enhance my lectures. In short, I believe that these types of systems are nothing short of indispensable for businesses and educational institutions alike.
I found Dr. Ian Gibson's description of the SCORM (shared common object reference model) acronym to be especially useful in understanding the role and value of these complex systems. From a very basic level, these systems share and allow the repetition of information and materials. While overall CMS systems organize people into groups and subcategories like "classes" and LMS systems allow for a more individualized corporate approach, the purpose and utility is the same.
Again, through my personal experience, I have seen from multiple vantage points how valuable such organization and asset management can be for users. Yet what is really amazing, is how quickly these tools are developing. I graduated from my bachelor's degree in 1998. Our course records were on paper and I even had to mail our registrar a physical letter in order to retrieve a copy of my transcript.
However, today, only twelve short years later, I am surrounded by an unbelievable array of media, resources, and personal information as a student in the EMDT program at Full Sail. Simply put, if my anecdotal observations are any indicator, we are likely to continue seeing an incredible expansion in the breadth, scope, and potential of such tools. In many ways, as the functionality and feature set of various CMS and LMS products expand, I'm guessing these resources will all start to look like more complex LCMS platforms marrying content, asset management, and individual program tracking into one system.
I think Dr. Gibson hit on an interesting point during his second video explaining the complexities of LCMSs. While encouraging students to not only study the material but engage with it by using the acronyms being discussed, he suggested that we could all become "mini-experts" within a relatively short amount of time.
I think he was on to something.
We can become experts overnight. And as educators and administrators here in the EMDT program, we may have to. If indeed this sector is going to continue developing by leaps and bounds, this is a critical perspective to hold dear. We are living in an world that has moved from a perspective of state-of-the-art to state-of-the-industry (which could have happened yesterday). Only a few weeks ago, Blackboard purchased both the Elluminate and Wimba software systems. Clearly, this company is looking to further increase their function set by adding a variety of synchronous learning tools to their product portfolio.
The world of data management and distribution is evolving daily and it is critical to stay current on the trends and tools within this sector. And while this process of keeping up with a frantic industry may be frustrating and overwhelming, we should find solace in remembering what these resources can offer our end users, our students, and that is a hereto unimaginable learning support system. I've been blown away with the resources available to me through Full Sail Online. I can repeat course content, talk with students, chat with instructors, and visit the library; all from from my laptop.
I will consider it nothing short of a major victory if I am able to bring even 5% of such resources to bare in my classroom this fall. Speaking from experience, the results of well managed and planned educational media design is amazing. I never imagined growing and learning as much as I have in the past 10 months.
Here's to September and turning the focus towards my students. Echoing Ivan Illich's aims, I truly feel inspired as a user and a learner with such tools and I'm excited to share it with my students, peers, and learning community.
Resources:
Dr. Ian Gibson, "LMO Moments: Learning Platform Terminology Mindmap Part 1 and 2", Video, Full Sail University
Terry Anderson, "OER's & A good educational system", Slideshow, The 14th Annual Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning
Within the last 18 months alone, I've had to learn to navigate Moodle, ADP's LMS (I thought they just made alarm systems), Campus Vue, Skillsoft, Microsoft's Sharepoint, and Full Sail Online. Now with a new job starting in September, I'm already diving into Sonis, a completely cloud-based CMS, and another company, New Media Training, for a "new employee" Sexual Harassment training exercise.
The diversity and complexity of these systems is astounding and I can't even begin to recall how many key-commands, site maps, and virtual folders I've dug through within this relatively short period of time. Despite this complexity, all of these systems share at least one common and powerful functional trait- they store, display, and distribute information.
In today's business and academic worlds, information is critical. And for such entitles to operate efficiently, sharing much of this information is essential. As an employee, being able to check my remaining annual vacation time in ADP's LMS from my living room is extremely convenient. Prior to the development of such learning management systems (or "learner" systems) I would have to drive across town to the corporate office and schedule an appointment with our HR Director to simply ask her to look up a specific data point. The sharing of that data facilitated by ADP allows both our HR Director and myself to focus on other more important job responsibilities. Furthermore, considering this system tracks my time off usage, neither of us are wasting precious brain space or paper in order to keep track of the dynamic nature that information.
Furthermore, with resources such as Moodle and Blackboard my time management in the classroom as an educator is drastically improved. Instead of spending hours digging through filing cabinets for overhead transparencies or DVDs and scheduling AV installs in my individual classrooms, I can use a CMS to instantly access key multimedia files to enhance my lectures. In short, I believe that these types of systems are nothing short of indispensable for businesses and educational institutions alike.
I found Dr. Ian Gibson's description of the SCORM (shared common object reference model) acronym to be especially useful in understanding the role and value of these complex systems. From a very basic level, these systems share and allow the repetition of information and materials. While overall CMS systems organize people into groups and subcategories like "classes" and LMS systems allow for a more individualized corporate approach, the purpose and utility is the same.
Again, through my personal experience, I have seen from multiple vantage points how valuable such organization and asset management can be for users. Yet what is really amazing, is how quickly these tools are developing. I graduated from my bachelor's degree in 1998. Our course records were on paper and I even had to mail our registrar a physical letter in order to retrieve a copy of my transcript.
However, today, only twelve short years later, I am surrounded by an unbelievable array of media, resources, and personal information as a student in the EMDT program at Full Sail. Simply put, if my anecdotal observations are any indicator, we are likely to continue seeing an incredible expansion in the breadth, scope, and potential of such tools. In many ways, as the functionality and feature set of various CMS and LMS products expand, I'm guessing these resources will all start to look like more complex LCMS platforms marrying content, asset management, and individual program tracking into one system.
I think Dr. Gibson hit on an interesting point during his second video explaining the complexities of LCMSs. While encouraging students to not only study the material but engage with it by using the acronyms being discussed, he suggested that we could all become "mini-experts" within a relatively short amount of time.
I think he was on to something.
We can become experts overnight. And as educators and administrators here in the EMDT program, we may have to. If indeed this sector is going to continue developing by leaps and bounds, this is a critical perspective to hold dear. We are living in an world that has moved from a perspective of state-of-the-art to state-of-the-industry (which could have happened yesterday). Only a few weeks ago, Blackboard purchased both the Elluminate and Wimba software systems. Clearly, this company is looking to further increase their function set by adding a variety of synchronous learning tools to their product portfolio.
The world of data management and distribution is evolving daily and it is critical to stay current on the trends and tools within this sector. And while this process of keeping up with a frantic industry may be frustrating and overwhelming, we should find solace in remembering what these resources can offer our end users, our students, and that is a hereto unimaginable learning support system. I've been blown away with the resources available to me through Full Sail Online. I can repeat course content, talk with students, chat with instructors, and visit the library; all from from my laptop.
I will consider it nothing short of a major victory if I am able to bring even 5% of such resources to bare in my classroom this fall. Speaking from experience, the results of well managed and planned educational media design is amazing. I never imagined growing and learning as much as I have in the past 10 months.
Here's to September and turning the focus towards my students. Echoing Ivan Illich's aims, I truly feel inspired as a user and a learner with such tools and I'm excited to share it with my students, peers, and learning community.
Resources:
Dr. Ian Gibson, "LMO Moments: Learning Platform Terminology Mindmap Part 1 and 2", Video, Full Sail University
Terry Anderson, "OER's & A good educational system", Slideshow, The 14th Annual Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
