Abandon the LMS -- What must a university change?

[Nils Peterson]

The question we (http://ctlt.wsu.edu) are asking is about what it would mean for the university to drop its course management system all together. We currently run both versions of Blackboard, and the campus leadership is debating consolidating or going to open source or ....

What if the university were to use the occasion of this conversation to jump from web 1.0 to 2.0? I'm interested in a discussion of the issues/ assumptions that would have to be overcome/changed. Consider for example identity, the university issued login or student created identities at Blogger, etc. How does the student 'prove' identity? Does changing how we think about identity change how we think about FERPA? Do we need policy about student aliases and avatars (to protect student identity)?

Other headings that might be discussed:
Authorization to access spaces.
Content, who creates it, where is it stored?
Assessment, what assumptions would change?

I started this in another thread (http://college2.ning.com/forum/topics/706361:Topic:14312?id=706361%...), and now invite you to extend the ideas here

[Nils Peterson]

One of the pieces that seems to need to change is how we think about the "gradebook." CTLT has been doing some far-ranging thinking about assessment and gradebooks, which we posted here: http://wsuctlt.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/learning-from-the-transform...

The problem is that thinking is pretty blue sky, and if the university were to abandon its LMS in favor of web 2.0, would that blue sky actually suffice to provide an alternative to the LMS's gradebook? If not, what is another way to look at the gradebook?

[Mary Hricko]

Well, I think we need to move in the direction of what are students are using to learn on their own. And they are NOT using what I consider "klunky" CMS tools.

I think the first challenge is to determine the type of courses best suited for web2.0 platforms...the idealist in me will always say ALL of them!...but the realist in me knows that I shouldn't be so optimistic.

Secondly, the next challenge I had was getting the university to think that I didn't go off the deep end. When I decided to teach in NING, some of my colleagues thought I was crazy..your teaching in a myspace thing? well, yes...I had to justify that my site would be a good classroom environment. I actually had to go over with some people how this would work.

After demonstrating the levels of security in NING that I could set up and developing my own paramaters to ensure security of the FERPA stuff, I received approval to develop the course in this format.

I think that one of the features that is nice is the ability to migrate content from semester to semester without having to type it all in again...in a CMS tool, it's just there...in a web 2.0 tool (at least some of them) I have to revise and fix the site up again...not in all cases, but some faculty want the bare minimum when it comes to course design. I think that truly innovative courses in web2.0 tech tools require a little more work for the faculty member.

Assessment is not a big issue for me because students place their artifacts for the class in a final portfolio that is graded on a rubric. I grade discussions, individual projects, and other assignments much in the same way. Assessment for learning can be derived in the manner of what I see going on on the individual blogs, the student to student dialogues, and the responses of students on topics that are not graded. Sometimes it is not necessary to measure all the elements of learning to see that it exists..I do think it is important for my own self reflection in the class. I have found that I can engage in formative assessment about projects and discussions very easy in the NING app.

Students generate content, I generate content,and others invited to lecture with us generate the content. The content generates the content, too. Students pick up on comments or threads and talk further, critically, and longer...I do get the one-two sentence responsed, but paragrapphs of commentary that is insightful...the medium lends itself to expression.

Well..this is my 2Cents

[Eduardo Peirano]

Laura Gibbs uses widgets to include dynamic content into Desire2Learn LMS. Lisa M Lane wrote the article Toolbox or Trap? Course Management Systems and Pedagogy and posted how she uses CMS as Portal?. Eric Kunnen posted a reply to Lisa's article, Pedagogy and the CMS

[Nils Peterson]

Thanks. A year ago I did a thought piece on how the university might respond to an emergency closure resulting from pandemic flu. That resulted in this course packet which links to my background thinking.

[Nils Peterson]

I think your comments about student generated content (or, by extension, student found resources) are a part of the strategy.

And you point to another idea that I think is important to solve. There is a small amount of FERPA protected communication needed. I didn't try to address the FERPA issue in this thought piece on response to pandemic flu. Largely, students could be working in public on the Internet, under identities of their choosing, but it may be desirable to have a 'hub' where they all could get together to find one another. The hub might also be used to post grades (privately to each student).

[Michael Staton]

This is good stuff..... I like your "edupunk" bent, though I hate that word "edupunk."

[Nils Peterson]

Students learning on their own -- or solving the problem of getting their ticket punched in the course on their own.

I just found and joined Knetwit.com which offers a resource to students (integrated with Facebook) to upload class notes, provide ratings on peer's notes, request notes from others and earn both social capital (higher ratings) and "koin" in the process. Its not clear if koin can be converted to monetary value.

How might faculty respond? Upload the notes themselves? In preparation for the AAC&U meetings Jan 22, CTLT has just posted a piece examining two paradigms for organizing learning - institution- centric and community centric.

Knetwit sits at an interesting place relative to those two paradigms. It is recognizing some of the community-based learning potential, but is organized around the institution-centric context of traditional courses and lecture notes. It strikes me as helping the (student) community learn to play the institution's game better. With the result -- given the assessment model of the institution -- that students could "win" without making themselves more capable in the post-school setting. Contrast this to authentic learning in the context of (and assessed by) the communit....

Here is a screenshot from Knetwit

[Nils Peterson]

Continuing this train of thinking, here is a picture of the kinds of tools our faculty use in our current LMS. The tool is Blackboard CE6. We queried the system for the "tool usage" for Fall semester 2008, from the start of classes thru Dec 10. The system is supporting ~1000 sections and ~45,000 enrollments so its a pretty good sample of use.

What appears to be the case here is that files are by far the largest use, and the 'folder' tool for organizing files is used more than the discussion tool.

Assessments, Assignments, and myGrades together make up the second largest use.

These comparisons may be a bit skewed in that a student might visit content multiple times in preparation for an assessment and might only visit the myGrades periodically, because its data are changing slowly and at predictable times.

Still, if you were going to do without an LMS, content, discussion and grades would seem to be the key elements that would need replacements.

[Nils Peterson]

This Network Student is a connectivist perspective, explained in plain language as a new role for faculty and how to avoid the content publishing challenge above.

[Eric Kunnen]

This is a great chart Nils... thanks for posting. Our results are somewhat similar, with content being at the top of the list, followed by the gradebook and announcements.

TOTAL LIVE Sections using Bb: 1540
Total Number of Fall 08 Sections: 2402
% Sections with Bb Usage: 64%
Total Number of Sections not using Bb: 862
Total Unique Students: 22354
Total Student Enrollments: 49386
Total Unique Instructors: 517
Total Unique Instructor/Faculty: 477

[Nils Peterson]

I posed some questions to our Atty General about her recommendations for password protecting course content. If one insists on PW protection, it means you need an extensive AuthN/AuthZ system linked to course enrollments (in other words you need an LMS or Content Management System) with course spaces and enrollment groups. For large numbers of sections being managed in such an environment, you also need an automated means to create the course spaces and set the authorizations.

HENCE my question to the AG. The core of the response was: "The reason for password protection ... is to make it more likely that the use is a fair use and/or within the TEACH ACT. I think there is probably not infringement unless the instructor is posting a performance (as defined in the act)....Your question regarding what you can do is more a policy issue than a legal issue. "

Roll this flexibility from the legal side in with the Connectivist ideas in the video above and you might conclude you could eliminate content management from an LMS, leaving only grade book, student identity-related FERPA issues, and quiz/assignment drop-box to be addressed.

A preliminary poking around in Moodle indicates that it might function as a grade book and quiz tool without other functions enabled.

The implications of that are huge savings in backup and bandwidth requirements which still having one of the killer apps (and the coin of the realm- grades) in a university system.

[Michael Staton]

Eric,

I like the way you always let the data speak for itself.

Best,

Michael