Monday, April 28, 2003|
ADL Initiative: New Coursematerial. There have been added new material to the course Introduction to the ADL Initiative and the SCORM. You can access them at http://www.academiccolab.org/learn. It is necessary to enroll (login and password) but there is no charge. This content contains the old SCOs, but also has 5 new ones:
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Macromedia suite half off with new Mac. In an attempt to boost its share of the Macintosh market, Macromedia cuts in half the price of its Studio MX Web content-creation software suite for people who buy a new Mac. [CNET News.com] 9:56:17 PM
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E-learning Careers TODAY. I didn't write this-- but want to pass it on to the EDTEC Beach.NEW FROM eLEARN MAGAZINE http://elearnmag.orgHOT ON THE TRAIL OF AN E-LEARNING CAREERBy Lisa Currin, special to eLearn MagazineYou can almost see the tumbleweeds blowing through the once-vibrant e-learning job market. [EDTEC Beach] 7:39:12 PM
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Ikarus: Teaching and Learning in Virtual Learning Environments I stumbled across this free course very recently via a mailing list post, managed to sign up just in time and it is so far turning out to be a very interesting if a little bit too academic an experience (I'm studying the pedagogy stream so that probably explains it :-) There are several hundred students participating from around the world. It appears to have started originally as an online law course! Unfortunately the pedagogy stream is presently concentrating on the science of instructional design (or is it?!) which is a bit of a dry argument, but later discussions look promising. The course runs for 13 weeks. They use a special system called Moodle that is not a clone of any usual online courseware package. [Learning Design, Virtual Learning Environments and Learning Activities]2:38:03 PM
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Congressman With a Copyright Plan. Five years after it was enacted, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has lived up to its critics' worst fears. But Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) thinks he knows just how to fix it. He explains in an interview with Lucas Graves from Wired magazine. [Wired News] 2:36:47 PM
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Brave New World of Web Services. What will the Web look like in 10 years? As rich Internet applications evolve, developers work on powerful new tools that could transform the online world. Leander Kahney reports from Santa Clara, California. [Wired News] 2:35:59 PM
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Sooner or later someone had to release a "proper" e-learning system for free. And here it is:
Apparently based on PHP (source code given freely, which is based on open source code products) it has a host of features resembling those found in the major LMS products. I guess they make their money from consulting?
Interestingly, although free, one needs to apply (and meet unspecified criteria) before one gets access to the software, the license of which was apparently released Dec. 16
No technical details of system requirements or the software are given. I wonder how much their support contract is?
The demos however reveal quite a sophisticated (but simplified) LMS. Looks like it offers 75% of WebCTs features (no chat for eample) for 0% of the cost. I'm not sure on the "linear" learning model though. Compared to WebCT it appears to be at a level somewhere between versions 2 and 3.
Overall Rating: 3.5 Chocolate Fish out of a possible 5
[Learning Design, Virtual Learning Environments and Learning Activities] The license to use the software is free. Support is not. Hosting (if you need it) is not free. Read the license carefully - do you think you could tailor this application to your needs? There are true open source LMS applications that are much better deals, imo. Look at OpenACS for example. See the article published January 27, 2003 in the eLearning Developers' Journal about how Berklee School of Music used this to provide their own tailored LMS. In my opinion, the first two questions that should be asked regarding LMS are: "How do we know we need an LMS?" and "How do we know we need to buy an LMS?" More often than you might expect, the answers to these questions are "No" and "We do NOT need to buy an LMS when we can build our own for free." 2:26:07 PM
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Last update: 11/20/2005; 7:21:21 PM .
