California Virtual Campus

"Learning Management Systems (LMS) are often viewed as being the starting point (or critical component) of any elearning or blended learning program. This perspective is valid from a management and control standpoint, but antithetical to the way in which most people learn today.

LMS’ like WebCT, Blackboard, and Desire2Learn offer their greatest value to the organization by providing a means to sequence content and create a manageable structure for instructors/administration staff. The "management" aspect of LMS’ creates another problem: much like we used to measure "bums in seats" for program success, we now see statistics of "students enrolled in our LMS" and "number of page views by students" as an indication of success/progress. The underlying assumption is that if we just expose students to the content, learning will happen.

Godfrey Parkin states: "But an LMS, as available today, is not a universal solution for a corporation’s e-learning problems. In fact, an LMS is often the albatross around the neck of progress in technology-enhanced learning". The issue is not that an LMS is not needed for learning (though that point in itself could be argued). The real issue is that LMS vendors are attempting to position their tools as the center-point for elearning – removing control from the system’s end-users: instructors and learners. Unfortunately, beginning learning with an LMS is often a matter of wrong tool for wrong purposes (which results in failed elearning implementations, ineffective learning, and unnecessary expenses). Implementing an LMS as part of a holistic learning environment gives the end user flexibility and control to move in various paths (driven by learning needs, not by LMS design).

Drawbacks to Learning Management Systems

Certain learning tasks are well suited for an LMS (centralized functions like learner administration and content management). Learning itself is different – it is not a process to be managed. Learning is by nature multi-faceted and chaotic. Organizations that now lock into enterprise-level systems will be able to do an excellent job of delivering courses. They won’t, however, be positioning themselves well for informal learning, performance support, or knowledge management. The concept is simple:…"

Entire article by George Siemens is at http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/lms.htm

"Where will e-learning take us in 2005? How will learning be impacted by the use of portable devices, blogs, and search engines? Will we better understand and have metrics for quality e-learning? Read on for predictions from some of the most thoughtful and opinionated people in the e-learning field.
"I predict more advances in dedicated devices than in the Internet. I predict an infusion of clever and effective educational toys for children. LeapFrog has developed intriguing toys that make great educational sense (see their "Twist and Shout® Multiplication" tool). Intelligent toys already teach reading. But why restrict these to children? I expect language tutors for adults. Why not combine hand-held dictionaries, phrase translators, and CD-ROM courses into a portable device? Will educational tools for adults show up in 2005? They could."
-Don Norman, Nielsen Norman group, Northwestern University, and author of Emotional Design, USA

" • Deconstruction of the Course: More learners are grazing content to select just those modules that they need RIGHT NOW!
• Increased use of search/Google-like learning vs. structured portal pages
• Lower cost alternatives for LMS and LCMS systems with ‘lighter’ feature sets
• Rise of collaboration servers from Microsoft, IBM and Others
• Integration of Learning with Document Management"
-Elliott Masie, Founder of MASIE Center’s e-Learning CONSORTIUM, USA

"We’ve entered a new era of culturally-sensitive e-learning. Reflection on the slow infiltration of e-learning in Japan led us to realize that the model should be more culturally based to be successful. Japan is a geographically small country with high population density and many universities and colleges; hence it is easy for students to…"

Article by Lisa Neal, Editor-In-Chief, eLearn Magazine at http://www.elearnmag.org/

"These days it seems everyone’s blogging. Combine this newest source of information with more traditional online news sources, and you could spend your whole day slogging through lists of bookmarked Web pages just to keep up. Rojo Networks is one of the latest of a bevy of startups trying to help Web users make better sense of this content explosion. The year-and-a-half-old startup’s approach is to help users home in on the most relevant and interesting news and blogs by finding out what others in their online social networks are reading.

Rojo exploits a recent and growing phenomenon called RSS, for Really Simple Syndication. With RSS, an online publisher can format content so that users can extract and display it, along with content from other publishers, using "RSS aggregators." These personalized websites and dedicated reader programs let users view all the RSS "feeds" they subscribe to-complete with headlines, summaries, and links to original content-in one location.

San Francisco’s Rojo is one of dozens of RSS aggregator companies. Like some of its competitors, Rojo has an RSS feed search function and gives readers the ability to flag stories they find important or interesting. But in enabling users to draw on the insights of friends, family, colleagues, and others in their social networks, Rojo departs from most of the competition. Rojo users can …"

Article by Corie Lok is at http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/issue/forward_content.asp?trk=nl

"Northface University Prepares Its Computer Science Students for the Workplace With Real-World Projects: As work moved from farms to factories in the Industrial Age of the early 1900s, there were significant changes made throughout all aspects of society, even in education. The one-room schoolhouse was replaced over time with an assembly-line model where students moved from teacher to teacher and room to room (Reigeluth and Garfinkle 1994). Efficiency was king. Now, many educational scholars and economists argue that, once more, our society has undergone massive changes, shifting from an Industrial Age to an Information Age (Reich 1991; Reigeluth and Garfinkle 1994). Survival in today’s economy requires workers who have strong critical-thinking, interpersonal and foundational skills (SCANS 1991). Our educational system is continuing to search for ways to effectively respond to the changing needs of today’s global economy. Increasingly, project-based learning is used as an instructional approach to prepare students to succeed in today’s dynamic workplaces.

Project-Based Learning Overview

In project-based learning, instruction and learning both occur within the context of a challenging project. Just as workers would encounter complicated tasks in the workplace, in a project-based learning environment, student teams are presented with complex problems that focus and act as catalysts for what they need to learn (Thomas 2000). The project, which could entail multiple problems, stimulates the learning process and gives it context. Typically, projects extend over time to act as interactive vehicles to help students acquire new, necessary knowledge and skill sets (Thomas 2000). Rather than working on a small project for a week, projects build upon . . ."

http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A5162.cfm

"Avoiding the traditional Democratic tack of pressing for more money for schools, the leader of California’s Senate is instead calling for the state to give schools more control over how they spend state aid, and to direct more money toward impoverished students.

In an interview Friday, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) said he wants to get rid of the dozens of state ‘categorical’ programs that allot money for specific purposes, such as bilingual teacher training and home-to-school transportation.

In the budget he unveiled this month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed spending $36 billion on schools in the fiscal year that begins July 1. That would be $2 billion less than schools are supposed to get under Proposition 98 guarantees.

School boards have claimed that Schwarzenegger reneged on a deal set last year to give schools full funding through Proposition 98, and many Democratic lawmakers also are calling for more money.

But rather than delve into that debate, Perata has announced that the Senate would hold public hearings around the state – including ones on education – in Fresno, Salinas and San Diego as lawmakers try to fashion their own plan for the special legislative session that Schwarzenegger has called.

‘As long as the governor believes we should be funding schools less than we have been . . .’"

Entire article at the Los Angeles Times site http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-reform23jan23,1,4156523.story?coll=la-news-learning&ctrack=1&cset=true

Each month Xplana Learning tracks important news and research in six different categories. The first four categories are tracked to predictions made by Rob Reynolds in his FutureMeter blog, while the others, Instructional Design and Technology News aggregate are collections of information we think will prove helpful to those in publishing and school administration.

• For Profit Schools vs. Traditional Schools
• Learning Experience and Learning Assessment
• Learning Objects vs. Textbooks
• Open Source LMS vs. Proprietary LMS
• Instructional Design
• Important Technology News

For Profit Schools vs. Traditional Schools

Continuing Education, E-Learning Demand to Double in 2005 : Demand for online courses will almost double in 2005, as professionals and companies realize e-learning’s distinct advantages, according to officials at RedVector.com, a Tampa-based company that offers online courses to professionals involved in the design and construction industries.

Global E-Learning Opportunities for Higher Education : The education consulting firm Hezel Associates released a preliminary report detailing…

See more of this article at the Xplana site http://www.xplana.com/newsletter/newsletter.php?PHPSESSID=99786543bf47dd49a543f311da2eee47#anchor3.

Knowing what supports learning for at risk students can make a difference in student success. Understanding the medium can help instructors accomplish their learning goals. With reference to a model of motivation used in university and corporate learning enviroments, Dr. Menager-Beeley will provide a cognitive tool kit that can be applied to online learning environments [...]

Have you ever wondered what causes an email to
be flagged as SPAM by your e-mail system? Following are examples of items that have
been caught in our SPAM filter. They may be references in the Subject line or in
the body of text.

A line of text that includes all capital
letters (referred to as ‘A WHOLE [...]

“The Apple community has-since its inception-been largely immune to nefarious hackers bent on spreading harm. If you are a Windows user, as I am, you know the routine. You complain about the latest spyware or virus attack, and Apple devotees respond with good-natured teasing-they don’t have worry about such nonsense. Well, now they do. That’s not true anymore.

Predictably, posts on various Apple-related message boards have been offering varying levels of concern, ranging from mild disappointment to utter gloom. I think this reaction is fundamentally misguided. MAC users should not be upset about this malware news; they should rejoice.

Huh? Why should the Apple community be celebrating the news? Before I explain, let me make one thing clear: I’m not advocating this kind of hacking, and certainly-as a victim of a virus attack myself not too long ago-I empathize with anyone who has been attacked. That said, this program is a milestone in computing history because the Apple community is finally large enough that it has drawn the attention of the hackers.

Here’s what happened: Last week, astute Mac users discovered a program dubbed “Opener.” This piece of code embeds itself onto Macs running OS X, the latest Apple operating system, and disables the computer’s firewall. The malware also locates and collects any…”

Entire article by Eric Hellweg is at http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/10/wo_hellweg102804.asp?trk=nl

“Since April 1999, the Center for Academic Transformation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has conducted a Program in Course Redesign with support from the Pew Charitable Trusts. The purpose of this institutional grant program is to encourage colleges and universities to redesign their instructional approaches using technology to achieve quality enhancements as well as cost savings. Redesign projects focus on large-enrollment, introductory courses, which have the potential of impacting significant student numbers and generating substantial cost savings. The Center has awarded $6 million in grants to 30 projects in three rounds of ten projects each.

The third round of redesign projects began in July 2001 and concluded in July 2003. (Detailed descriptions of the ten redesigns and the outcomes each achieved can be found at http://www.center.rpi.edu/PewGrant/Rd3award.html.) The ten institutions and the courses they redesigned are:

Brigham Young University (BYU): English Composition
Drexel University: Computer Programming
Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU): Fine Arts
Iowa State University: Discrete Mathematics
Northern Arizona University (NAU): College Algebra
The Ohio State University: Statistics
Portland State University (PSU): Introductory Spanish
Tallahassee Community College (TCC): College Composition
The University of New Mexico (UNM): General Psychology
The University of Southern Mississippi (USM): World Literature

What follows is…”

Entire article by Carol Twigg can be found at http://www.center.rpi.edu/PewGrant/Rd3Less.html