Sharing Learning Designs: Building the LAMS Community website

1. Sharing Learning Designs: Building the LAMS Community website James Dalziel Professor 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

2. 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?

3. Information and Communication Technologies ICT ?

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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 Videohttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/kemnal.wmv

7. Example of Creating Learning Designs using LAMS Authoring

8. Example of Learner Environment for LAMS Learning Design

9. 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

10. 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: • Learning Designs/Learning Activities focus, rather than simply content • Community focus, rather than repository focus • Search based on free-text searching, not metadata searching • Automated usage tracking/rating systems, not complex peer review/approval systems (and not nothing on usage) • Small set of simple licenses, not complex licenses (and not nothing) • Learning software and learning content are free - no payment required • Resources can be easily adapted by others, not just fixed/static • Close integration of Learning Platform and the Community for sharing • Easy to share own work – short submission process, automated MD

11. 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

12. 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

13. LAMS Community for sharing and developing LAMS Learning Designs - Login

14. Teacher Home Page – Personalised Portal View of all Communities

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

16. Single Community View

17. Forum View

18. Sequence Repository – Public View

19. Example of Search page including results

20. Individual Sequence – Detailed View

21. Individual Sequence – Download page

22. Overview of Sequences you have shared

23. 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