Comparisons and advocacy

corr Colin-you got me there.....been a while since I read any philosophy/theories by JS Mill...had to look up the name-only to make sure it wasn't Stuart John Mill 

What I remember was that the chap during the 1800s had some sort of philosophical theory about fibbing...which contrasted with Kant's if everybody lied  we would not know what to believe.....

I would take his critique of the lady of Shallot with a pinch of salt...scuse pun......because he may have lied about it all anyway.

One thing I agree with JS Mill: is his take on inductive reasoning......

tangent....what tangent-whooosh...........  

Okay, now this conversation is getting interesting.

I'd like to hear more about how Moodle's functionality has become "corporatized." The idea that Moodle has become "corporatized" implies that there are specific and unique ways learning activities are enabled in corporate environments, but in my experience there are lots of different types of corporate environments - think of Apple vs Microsoft, or Microsoft vs Google, or Proctor & Gamble vs Enron, or your corner grocery store vs Costco or Tesco.

A while ago I posted a question in this space about how the design of the Moodle forums enabled a constructionist learning theory, but I was quite frankly a bit disappointed in the answers I heard. I was hoping to discover some deep thinking around the design of this learning tool within Moodle - stories of valiant striving to do not just what technology allows us to do easily, but to hammer the iron of technology into tools that enable the best kinds of learning. I do think Moodle is way ahead of everyone else in the LMS field in articulating a vision for learning, which the LMS enables. I think Martin & Co are absolutely correct in thinking that people learn best what they themselves create, which is the heart of constructionist learning theory (and also constructivist learning theory). To the extent that an online discussion forum allows learners to create something meaningful for themselves, it facilitates learning a la that theory. So would a discussion forum be used differently in a corporate learning environment than in, say, an elementary school or a university class? And if so, how would you design it differently? (no postings unless approved by "corporate masters"?).

This tension between how learning is enabled in many learning environments and how we would LIKE it to be enabled is (or should be) a central issue in how Moodle is designed. Much of the discussion surrounding the quiz tool, for example, which I follow in Tim Hunt's excellent quiz forum, seems to revolve around that tension - for example, "We don't want students to be able to cheat on high-stakes tests that we give in our school / college / university!" So let's design in a lock-down browser, IP address matching, random question generator, etc etc. But if you see the quiz tool as enabling meaningful and repetitive low-stakes practice that builds low-level knowledge (in Bloom's taxonomy) that is then used and demonstrated in other contexts - well, you wouldn't need all of those add-ons. I see Moodle's well-intentioned developers walking this tightrope constantly. And since I work in a learning environment that relies on a commercial LMS, I see the C-LMS folks always trying to gain a competitive advantage by enabling - essentially pandering to - lots of really bad learning practices. As one of my mentors liked to say, "The customer isn't always right, but ... (pregnant pause) ... the customer is never wrong!"

Peter