Sharing Learning Designs: Building the LAMS Community

website

James DalzielProfessor of Learning Technology &

Director, Macquarie E-learning Centre of Excellence (MELCOE)

Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

james@melcoe.mq.edu.au

www.melcoe.mq.edu.au

Presentation for EDUCAUSE, Orlando, Florida, 19th October, 2005

The Problem: E-learning Content Today

• Most assumes single learner, self-paced learning

• Often little more than textbooks online?

• Content-centric, transmission model of education– What is the implied pedagogy?

ICTInformation and Communication Technologies?

Introducing Learning Design

• Learning Design is a name given to a new field of e-learning technology

• Learning Design = Sequence of Collaborative Learning Activities

• Learning Designs can incorporate single learner content, but also collaborative tasks such as discussion, voting, small group debate, etc

• Potential to “wrap” a single-learner Learning Objects with a sequence of collaborative tasks

• **Learning Designs can be stored, re-used, customised

Demonstration Example: LAMS

• LAMS illustrates the Learning Design approach

• In trials for over two years in Australia and UK– Strong positive response from both teachers and learners

• Applicable to all education sectors (schools, VET, HE, corporate training, adult and community learning, etc)– Eg, UK K-12 & HE trials; Oxford, Cambridge, ANU,

New Zealand Ministry of Education/National Library, etc

• LAMS released as freely available open source software by the LAMS Foundation, commercial support services provided by LAMS International Pty Ltd– Both supported by Macquarie University

– See www.lamsfoundation.org and www.lamsinternational.com

LAMS Live Demonstration

(For a screenshot walkthrough of a demonstration similar to the one shown live, see the “What is Greatness?” example on slides 9-20 at http://lamsfoundation.org/CD/html/resources/summaries/LAMS.LaunchWorkshop.ppt )

Case Study: LAMS UK School Implementation - JISC Video

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/kemnal.wmv

Example of Creating Learning Designs using LAMS Authoring

Example of Learner Environment for LAMS Learning Design

The Dream of Re-using E-learning Content

• Many of us have believed in a dream, either implicitly or explicitly, that goes something like this:– “if each educator built a few excellent e-learning resources, and

shared them with everyone else so that all could use and adapt them, then the re-use of shared resources would revolutionise education through higher quality and faster preparation”

• That is, if we remove duplication in development and planning, but retain the ability to adapt to local context, we could transform the working lives of educators– Instead of everyone duplicating everything, and mostly doing a

mediocre job, each educator focusses on a few areas of speciality (shared with all), then re-uses the work of others

• How is the dream going?– Despite $100Ms and enormous effort – I believe it has failed

New Principles for Re-use and Sharing

• Why has it failed? Many reasons – not enough time now

• Is the dream still worth believing in? – I think so

• Suggested new principles for fostering re-use and sharing:

1. Learning Designs/Learning Activities focus, rather than simply content

2. Community focus, rather than repository focus

3. Search based on free-text searching, not metadata searching

4. Automated usage tracking/rating systems, not complex peer review/approval systems (and not nothing on usage)

5. Small set of simple licenses, not complex licenses (and not nothing)

6. Learning software and learning content are free - no payment required

7. Resources can be easily adapted by others, not just fixed/static

8. Close integration of Learning Platform and the Community for sharing

9. Easy to share own work – short submission process, automated MD

Introducing the LAMS Community

• LAMS Community based on the suggested principles– Complements LAMS V1.0.2 release

• Built on the OpenACS / .LRN open source community platform– Personalised portal view across different communities

• Key Community Features– News (including RSS)

– Discussion forums

– **Sequence repository (including RSS)

– Sub-communities

– Surveys

– FAQs

Introducing the LAMS Community

• Initial community structure:– Educational Community

• Getting Started

• K-12 Schools

• Higher Education & Training

• Research and Development

– Technical Community

– LAMS Lounge

• Will add new communities as need grows– Communities can be open or closed

• Technical community will become the home of the LAMS software open source development community

LAMS Community for sharing and developing LAMS Learning Designs - Login

Teacher Home Page – Personalised Portal View of all Communities

Teacher Home Page – Personalised Portal View of all Communities (cont)

Single Community View

Forum View

Sequence Repository – Public View

Example of Search page including results

Individual Sequence – Detailed View

Individual Sequence – Download page

Overview of Sequences you have shared

The Birth of Open Source Teaching?

• The LAMS Community recommends Creative Commons “open content” licensing for LAMS sequences– Default license: attribution, non commercial use, share alike

• Is this the birth of “Open Source Teaching”?– Combination of open source software that captures the teaching

process and community sharing under open content licensing

– Bringing the concepts of shared “code” to educational practice via re-usable sequences of learning activities

• As with any open source project or community, its success depends entirely on its contributors– We welcome you to join us at www.lamscommunity.org