Flexknowlogy – Jared Stein

Nixty.com is billed as “a truly disruptive educational platform”, a free, public LMS aimed at delivering both traditional and informal, open educational experiences. Seth Gurell and I reviewed Nixty pretty thoroughly this week, then co-wrote this review. Michael Feldstein, Alan Levine, and others[1],[2],[3] have already provided some insights and serious commentary on the idea of Nixty and its claims. Our review neglects that side of the discussion and focuses on the basic features, usability, and feasibility of the system from a designer and a user perspective (more…)

There’s been a real debate about the role of the LMS–if any–in modern online learning going on for the last 5 years or so. I’m situated somewhere in the middle: I’d love to see real-world examples of disruptive applications of technology to online learning that prove effective for learning; I also realize that many online learning experiences can be–and in some cases, perhaps excel when supported by what we now know as a traditional learning management system. Here in Utah we’re examining potential replacements for Blackboard Vista. I’ve listed the following broad must-haves I think an e-learning platform should do (more…)

Here’s the letter Michael Chasen sent out today (emphases added) (more…)

The My Moodle feature in Moodle 1.9x displays a list of registered courses to a user after logging in. The nice thing about the list is that each course link is followed by a listing of any recent news or events in the course. Unfortunately in highly active courses this list becomes quite lengthy, and ultimately obnoxious as the length obstructs quick access to other courses in one’s view.

To remedy this I have, for quite some time, maintained a custom bit of very basic Javascript and CSS that sets the default view of news items to hidden, with a clickable link to show the entire list from the My Moodle page:

Nothing fancy, and even as I look at it now I can think of improvements…

We just upgraded to 1.9.8 this semester, and because this snippet modifies Moodle core I had my developer Kevin re-test the snippet before I asked our server admin Paul to replace the existing function as follows:

file Location:            '/course/lib.php'
file line:                    "800"
function to replace: "function print_overview($courses)"

Here’s the actual replacement function:

Mary Cooch has posted a number of videos on YouTube about Moodle, the latest showcasing new features found in the upcoming Moodle 2.0, now push back to Summer 11. Despite the delay, I’m still excited to see Moodle 2.0, as a number of features really help move it outside the traditional pigeonhole of the LMS.

A Brief Tour of Moodle 2.0

2.0 includes an entire rewrite of my favorite Moodle tool, the collaborative Workshops activity:

Moodle Workshops 2.0

Because we’ve been anticipating its release since early 2008 my co-worker Ken jokes that Moodle 2.0 is vaporware, the Duke Nukem Forever of LMS. I joked that we should call it Twoodle. But seriously, I’m still hoping we’ll see an official, stable release by Fall 2010.

I conducted a 1hr demonstration of the open source learning management system Moodle 1.9.5 for higher ed folks in Utah and the Utah Education Network. The demo went well enough, and I hope some of my colleagues from around the State got a little taste of Moodle, especially as it compares to Blackboard/WebCT Vista (more…)

Jon Mott blogged about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the course management system (CMS, aka LMS or VLE) and a personal learning network (PLN, sometimes associated/equated with PLE). The LMS/PLE “dilemma” has been itching my brain for some time now, so Jon’s post was a timely motivator to begin to think the issue through in print (more…)

This semester I elected to test Instructure’s (pilot? beta?) learning management system with my own online course, DGM 2740: Web Design, the third course in the Digital Media web development track at UVU. Instructure is showing us how it’s done with strong AJAX enhancements for more streamlined user processes (more…)

As I begin the pilot of our WordPress MU installation for Utah Valley University, questions naturally arise as to expected usage of the system. This led to the idea of running a short survey for students, faculty, and staff that asks if and how they would use such a community publishing platform. I then wondered if students or faculty who already had a blog would use the institutional system as a blog, whether in addition to or as a replacement for their own (even if only to meet a course requirement). This, of course, led me back to the idea of “creepy treehouses” (more…)

The UVU campus is nearly uninhabited today as we swing into spring break. There’s no spring break at BYU, though, so I took advantage of my lightened workload to make it up to David Wiley’s IPT 692r – Intro to Open Ed course early, motivated in part by the fact that Russ Carlson, President of Blackboard, would be joining us in a discussion of the future of the learning management system (LMS) with respect to open education (more…)