Frances Bell

I posted something about LAMS in the standards forum, see http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=3758#59735

If it generates any discussion you might be interested.  BTW I referenced your post.

I posted something about LAMS in the standards forum, see http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=3758#59735

If it generates any discussion you might be interested.  BTW I referenced your post.

Learning Design 'inspired' Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) announced in July that is going (sort of) Open Source, see http://cetis.ac.uk/content2/20040722175623 for details.

I just searched the moodle forums for references to LAMS and only found 2 refs, neither of which provoked much comment so I thought that I would raise it  here.

The other two refs on moodle.org are

http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=9087#43943

http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=10827#52196

I am a member of the CETIS Pedagogy forum in the Uk , see http://www.cetis.ac.uk/members/pedagogy/, and we have had a couple of presentations on LAMS.  Whilst I have my doubts about LAMS' universal applicability, I think it is very interesting work.

Anyway what do you standards people think?  Would collaborating with the LAMS community be mutually beneficial?

I am really pleased to see these two threads.  We are using moodle for a tutor network of tutors interested in online collaboration activities for students (a kind of CoP), and also to provide "collaboration spaces" where these activities can take place.  Like you we are at the development stage but hope to release the network asap.  We have done pilot work over a few years on the actual student collaborations.

Susbequently we shall also have a student network.

We are currently developing tutor resources e.g.

• a clickable map of the process for tutors to join the network, find partners and set up collaborative activities (we like to think of this as a dating agency model!)
• a printable version of this in a document for those who like to "read first"
• some example threads in the finding forum where tutors meet up
• some example collaboration spaces and activities

My view is that participants have to be able to form some initial understanding of the sort of place they have come to, what it's for and what sort of things might happen there, and a feeling that they would like to come back and maybe join in.

I think that our network is probably, at least initially, a little more topic-focused than yours and other CoPs but we probably have a lot in common.

The moodle features that we anticipate using are

courses - for collaboration spaces and the networks themselves

editable glossaries, developed in project partner area and migrated to networks

wiki - for developing examples of good practice and concepts (later edited into support)

resources - for all sorts of things

forums - for the discours-based collaborative activities

etc., etc.

We have done what Martin suggests and used the language packs and the moodle configuration to set up alternative terminology e.g. collaboration space in place of course, etc. We have the additional challenge of wanting to provide some of our content in multiple languages. 

An area that we hope to develop is the development of an ethos for our networks, based on the UNESCO guidelines on Tolerance, but you'll see more of this when we ask moodlers to join us in 4 weeks or so in this collaborative endeavour.

If you'd like to come and see what we are doing at the test stage, mail me off-forum but bear in mind that I am about to depart for 10 days well-earned holiday.

Our project web site (with not much on it) is at http://www.cabweb.net

I was a Lotus Notes user some years ago, and multiple categorisation (of documents) was one its more attractive features.  As I recall, there was a drop down box to select a category, then that category was  added to the display of current categories for the document, displayed as a comma separated list.

Now I am not a Moodle developer but the latent database designer in me suggest that this changes the relationship between courses and categories from many to one to many to many, and may need a link table with courseid, category id.

I'll shut up now before I display any more ignorance