Comparisons and advocacy

Hi Dave,

I've been different catching posts on NEW (Network EducationWare) around Moodle forums. Just here I found one little magic word: "application sharing" that you clain you added to NEW.

What exactly did you do? What technology did you use? Can you tell us more about it?

As I see it, this is a crucial feature as it gives you the flexibility to use any application teacher-side and thus lets the teacher pick the one more appropriate for the presentation.

Thank you in advance for your answer.

Best regards.

Good point, I should have said proprietary, due to the fact that open source doesn't always mean free.

Dave

How about a LCMS (Learning Conent Management System) ? I have seen Moodle described in that way. But on the SCORM forums LMS and LCMS are described as two different things, rather than LMS being a subset of LCMS.

So, perhaps Learning and Content Management Sytem. LACMS?

Tim

Speaking from a software development point of view, I disagree with the definition of CMS (Content Management System) given above. First of all, there is no CMS committee deciding what is and what isn't a CMS so there are grey areas and it all comes down to negotiating shared meanings with your audience but for me almost any piece of software that creates a webpage where the main focus is on the 'content' (meaning textual communication) is a CMS.

So at the simple end of the scale you have blogs (though some multi-blog installations can be very complex). Wikis are off in a corner due to their open editing policies but are definitely at least adjacent to CMS's (and possibly KMS). Then you get the mid-scale more 'typical' CMSs like Plone or Drupal, some of which lean towards managing documents and web-publishing workflow, some of which could more accurately be called Community Management System (e.g. Drupal and it's political half-brother CivicSpaces). What the definition you provide talks about, I would classify as an Enterprise CMS to differentiate them from the other kinds.

Moodle certainly draws on the heritage of popular LAMP CMS's though it's learning emphasis put's it out on the margins. I still consider it part of the CMS 'family' and would look to other (primarily open source) CMSs for future directions as much as, if not more than, the big name LMSs.

In the UK the hideously pointless acronym VLE, for Virtual Learning Environment, seems quite popular. Some educators have made a strong push for OLE, Online Learning Environment, with the sound argument that the learning is real and not virtual learning. However, 'virtual' meaning 'computer-related' seems to have become lodged in the public consciousness so I think VLE will continue to be used here.

I'll end, for no good reason, with my favourite quote on CMSs:

Open source content management software sucks. It sucks really badly. The only things worse is every commercial CMS I've used. -- Jeff Veen

There's some interesting perspective on CMS's in the discussion if you follow that link and can stomach all the moaning and astroturing.

While it is possible that the EdTech department could spend $100k per month ($1.2 m), it would be prudent for them to explain where this budget is targeted to. If you include the cost of equipment, technical staff, space, internet connections, training, maintenance and the software then I can see it (depending on the size of the program). However, are many of those areas in cross-use? Does the technical staff only work with the distance learning program or do they have other duties. Is the network considered in these figures, that can be an enourmous sum. I think the article is related to the direct costs of BB or WBCT.

I'm a 51 year old grad student, with 25 years experience in programming and training, so I'm looking at this thesis project from many angles.

1) I'm not going to get caught up in acronyms. Over the years I've seen so many made up terms that they have little meaning now. As pointed out in another post, so many products cross boundaries, just exactly what is what doesn't really count. I helped to write a book 20 years ago discussing acronyms in training, most of those would never be used now, even though they are still relevant. I call Moodle and NEW (and other things) simply virtual learning environments.

2) When I was talking about migrating, I meant from old WebCT to newer WebCT (I forgot the version numbers) and from WebCT to Blackboard. In 2001, USF did the WebCT version conversion, it was a mess. Due to the way that WebCT indexes pages the conversion essentially came down to recapturing every page and then importing the pages individually. In one course alone, we had over 270 content pages, many with multiple links to other areas and pages. In 2003 the decision was made to go from WebCT to BB, this move still has not been completed for all courses. Let's be honest, those two systems don't want to make it easy for you to leave them, and why should they?

3) Blackboard problems...as a programmer, a student and as a course designer I have always looked at BB as an interesting but not well designed product. At several universities that I have worked with, this system seems to constantly be running slow or crashing. At first I thought this might be related to a specific institution, but then I saw it happening at several others, in the exact same way. There have been numerous articles about this. BB and WebCT both lack in many reporting areas. Postings with attachments are always failing. In the fall of 2001 at USF, our WebCT system crashed and we could not get it running properly for 3 weeks. Their tech support was less than worthless, regardless of how much they were paid.

4) Instructional staff, by and large, don't want to be programmers. They get basic instruction in how to "create" a web based course and don't want to learn how to do it again. Ofcourse they would be satisfied with what they have, they don't know things can be better.

5) There is a bigger problem here, beyond just the software used. Instructors aren't taught HOW to teach online, it is different. Asynchronous communications don't require the participants to do anything with any immediacy. Failure in getting a  point across can take weeks and can be completely misunderstood during the writing time. A joke turns into a slur. This is why I'm doing a blended class, with both synchronous, online voice communications as well as asynch discussion areas. I've known instructional staff that failed to respond to students for over 2 months or even show up for the class. This would never be allowed in a traditional classroom setting. Students also need to learn HOW to take a distance learning course. Since there is no set class time (in most cases), then the course gets put on the back burner. This is one reason why only about 30% of any given student population accept distance learning classes, it requires a massive amount of self-discipline.

Let's be real, if we look at the basic structure of most distance learning courses, regardless of the design platform, there is not that much difference between them and a paper correspondence course. In 1728 Caleb Phillips produced the first known correspondence course. The basic design has not changed. An assignment is posted--time passes--the student receives the assignment and mails back the response or question--time passes--the instructor may or may not respond--more time passes. No immediacy of communications. That is what was done in 1728, that's whats done now. That is a major reason why most students hate taking Distance Learning classes. Ask a question in a traditional classroom, you can get an answer in seconds. Ask the same question in a virtual classroom, it could be weeks before you get an answer and the answer may not be related to the question, because the text based question was misinterpreted.

Dave...

Dave