Future Directions for LAMS and Learning Design James Dalziel Professor of Learning Technology, and D

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Future Directions for LAMS and Learning Design
James DalzielProfessor of Learning
Technology, and Director, Macquarie E-Learning
Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE)Macquarie
University james_at_melcoe.mq.edu.auwww.melcoe.mq.e
du.auPresentation for First International LAMS
Conference, Sydney, December, 2006
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Overview

• LAMS background Who, what, why
• Example Qualities of an effective teacher
• LAMS V2
• RAMS
• Pedagogic planners
• The future

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LAMS Background Who

• LAMS Foundation www.lamsfoundation.org
• Non-profit mission to benefit education via
  LAMS and LD
• Owns LAMS software, releases it as open source
  (GPL)
• LAMS International Pty Ltd www.lamsinternational
  .com
• Services/support company training, hosting,
  tech support, etc
• NB No one is required to pay anything for LAMS
  optional services
• LAMS Community www.lamscommunity.org
• Online community for educational and technical
  discussion of LAMS
• Repository of LAMS sequences
• MELCOE (Macquarie E-Learning Centre Of
  Excellence)
• Home of LAMS development at Macquarie University

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LAMS Background What

• LAMS is a Learning Design system
• Software for sequences of collaborative learning
  activities
• Author, run with students, monitor, (admin)
• Sequences can be stored, shared and adapted
• capture and migrate good pedagogy (Diana)
• Complemented by the LAMS Community
• Community website for sharing sequences
• LAMS is not a Learning Management System/VLE
• LAMS integrates with LMSs, including Moodle,
  Sakai, .LRN Blackboard, WebCT see
  www.lamsfoundation.org/integration
• LAMS sequences added as a link from the LMS
  course page eg Click here for activities for
  week 3

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LAMS Background Why

• Frustration that e-learning single-learner
  content quiz
• Frustration with the limited pedagogy of LMSs
• The dream of sharing, re-use, adaptation and
  improvement
• The benefits of open education (software and
  content)
• Empowering educators to easily use powerful
  online tools to create experiences similar to
  those of the classroom (inc. sequencing)
• Help provide a common language to describe
  educational activities
• Foster rigorous educational research through
  clearer comparisons
• Potential for research-based teaching
• Help visualise the teaching process
• Giving all students a voice/democratising
  discussion
• Flexibility in time, place and pace for
  collaborative learning
• Capture rich activity records for
  e-portfolios/authentic assessment
• Better education for a better world

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Example Qualities of an effective teacher

• Consider a course where you wanted students to
  learn about the qualities of an effective teacher
  (eg, BEd)
• You could give them a lecture about the
  literature
• You could have a free-form discussion in a
  tutorial
• Pedagogically, youd probably like to achieve
• Exposure to, and understanding of, relevant
  literature
• Active engagement, applied to own life,
  self-reflection
• Students demonstrating good communication skills
• Modelling of good practice as an effective
  teacher

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Qualities of an effective teacher

• You could create a sequence of activities, eg
• Step 1 Each student answers What are the
  qualities of an effective teacher?, then
  considers collated responses
• Step 2 Each student votes on the top 2 qualities
  from a list, then reflects on collated votes
• Step 3 Group debate about the most important
  qualities of an effective teacher, based on
  outcomes of (1) and (2)
• Step 4 Review of literature on effective
  teachers
• Step 5 Group discussion of how the debate in (3)
  relates to literature in (4)
• Step 6 Reflective report on the original
  question, based on own ideas and those of the
  group, including any changes in own views

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Options for student delivery

• Face to face (no computers)
• Step by step teacher instruction guide
• Student worksheets
• E-learning
• Software that manages the sequence of student
  activities
• Configuration of each activity tool as required
• (Teacher monitoring)

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LAMS Authoring What are the qualities of an
effective teacher?
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LAMS Authoring Configuring chat text (step 3)
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Re-using an existing sequence

• Changes required for a different topic are
  underlined
• Step 1 Each student answers What are the
  qualities of an effective teacher?, then
  considers collated responses
• Step 2 Each student votes on the top 2 qualities
  from a list, then reflects on collated responses
• Step 3 Group debate about the most important
  qualities of an effective teacher, based on
  outcomes of (1) and (2)
• Step 4 Review of literature on effective
  teachers
• Step 5 Group discussion of how the debate in (3)
  relates to literature in (4)
• Step 6 Reflective report on original question,
  based on own ideas and those of group, and any
  changes in views

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Re-using an existing sequence

• Modified example Choosing an effective LMS
• Step 1 Each student answers What are the
  qualities of an effective LMS?, then considers
  collated responses
• Step 2 Each student votes on the top 10
  qualities from a list, then reflects on collated
  responses
• Step 3 Group debate about the most important
  qualities of an effective LMS, based on outcomes
  of (1) and (2)
• Step 4 Review of literature on effective LMSs
• Step 5 Group discussion of how the debate in (3)
  relates to literature in (4)
• Step 6 Reflective report on original question,
  based on own ideas and those of group, and any
  changes in views

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LAMS Authoring Modifying chat text (step 3)
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Example Sharing a sequence

• The LAMS Community is a global website for LAMS
  users
• Supports a range of sub-communities (eg, K-12,
  HE, RD, Tech)
• Can be open or closed, can delegate management
• Forums for discussing the use of LAMS
• Repository of shared sequences
• Can upload, search, browse, rate, comment and
  download
• Based on .LRN open source software

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LAMS Community View of various communities
forums
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LAMS Community Repository Summary
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LAMS Community Detailed view of individual
sequence
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LAMS V2

• Over two years of work to rebuild LAMS based on
  all the lessons (technical and pedagogical)
  learned to date
• For teachers and learners, the core concepts
  remain the same, but many new features
• For programmers, it has a new modular
  architecture
• Separation of activity tools from workflow
  engine
• Provides a foundation for shared development for
  many years to come

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LAMS V2 New Features

• General LAMS V1 plus
• Internationalisation (23 languages underway to
  date)
• HTML editor for all activities (supports rich
  media)
• All activities can be run online or offline
• New Welcome page for courses and course groups
  (eg, tutes)
• New grouping options (teacher chosen, specify
  group size/no.)
• New workflow gates (schedule, synchronise,
  permission)
• Instructions/advice/worksheets option for all
  activities
• Sequence launching using flexible groups
  scheduling
• Teacher participation in any activity
  edit/hide/filter options
• All activities provide statistics on student use
• Portfolio export downloadable record of
  student activities
• Many more See http//wiki.lamsfoundation.org/disp
  lay/lams/LAMS2.0FeatureList

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LAMS V2 New Features

• Technical
• Ground-up rewrite
• Modular tools architecture LAMS Tools Contract
• Supports tools developers and external tools (via
  wrappers)
• Server clustering for high scalability
• Flexible identity/roles management (inc. LDAP)
• LMS integration (single-sign-on potential for
  tools via Contract)
• New workspaces provides file system for
  managing sequences
• Monitor greatly enhanced, eg, all tools can be
  Define Later
• Support for multiple databases
• Flexible open source Flash components
• Customisable look and feel (skins, etc)
• IMS Learning Design Level A export option

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LAMS V2 Wiki (www.lamsfoundation.org/wiki)
Tools Contract
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Upcoming for LAMS V2.1

• The LAMS V2 architecture provides the foundations
  for many new features which are not yet visible,
  eg
• Branching
• Conditionality
• Advanced grouping
• Data in/data out
• Combinations of the above
• Also planned are
• Edit on the fly
• Merge sequences (authoring)
• Instant messaging
• Student-led tools and sequencing
• Pedagogic planner (didnt make it for V2)

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Branching by group different content for each
group
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Advanced grouping and branching multiple
pathways
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Introducing RAMS

• The Research Activity Management System (RAMS)
  builds on the LAMS V2 workflow core ( new
  eResearch features)
• A new suite of activity tools appropriate for
  people-based eResearch activityflows
• Plus multi-purpose tools that apply across
  eLearning and eResearch
• The result is two different domain-specific
  applications (LAMS for eLearning RAMS for
  eResearch) that draw on a common workflow core
• Everything is open source

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Introducing RAMS
Teachers
Researchers
LAMS Application
RAMS Application
eLearning specific tools
Multi-purpose tools
eResearch specific tools
Education Workflow Engine (LAMS core new
RAMS development)
Admin
Author
Monitor
Participant
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My nightmare.

• LAMS guarantees good pedagogy

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My nightmare.

• LMS X guarantees bad pedagogy

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Pedagogic Planners

• Some of the most exciting current work in
  Learning Design is around the concept of a
  pedagogic planner
• A support process to assist educators in
  reflection, and selecting and adapting sequence
  templates to improve student learning
• NB It will be some time before we have rich
  enough libraries of sequences that adaptation is
  not required
• We still have a great deal to learn about how to
  do this
• For me, a pedagogic planner has three stages
• (1) A decision process to select an appropriate
  template
• (2) Easy authoring (only fill in essential
  fields)
• (3) Output that can immediately be run (not a
  narrative description)
• The process needs to be easy to support rapid
  iterations

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Early ideas for a pedagogic planner
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An example of the first stage Decision process
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More details for the first stage Decision
process
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Second stage Easy authoring (other settings
pre-configured)
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Pedagogic Planners

• Stage 1 Decision process could be based on
  many different models of reflecting on teaching
  and selecting a sequence
• My example simple set of branched web pages
• Could be a search against a library based on
  criteria
• Could be based on recommendations, usage, etc
• Stage 2 Easy authoring assumes a template
  designer has created existing sequences based on
  good pedagogy where most features are
  pre-configured
• So the educator only needs to complete essential
  fields
• Stage 3 Output can immediately be run
• Important for iterative testing, as well as easy
  sharing
• Narrative description in a text document is not
  sufficient (for me)

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Pedagogic Planners

• A vision for pedagogic planners
• A model for using and creating pedagogic planners
• An important new role for educational designers
• Software infrastructure to support creating/using
  pedagogic planners
• Potential for re-use and sharing of pedagogic
  planners themselves (incorporating decision
  process and templates)
• Iterative research on what types of pedagogic
  planners (decision process and templates) are
  found to be most useful
• Discipline-based?
• Pedagogic style?
• Delivery mode?

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(Stage 1)
(Stage 2)
(Stage 3)
Creating a Pedagogic Planner Educational
Designer role
Design a decision process
Select template via decision process
Using a Pedagogic Planner Teacher/Lecturer role
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The future

• We look forward to your feedback on Version 2
• We welcome software and educational developers to
  contribute to the ongoing development
• Were exploring how LAMS could apply to eResearch
  workflows (RAMS)
• Were interested to explore models for pedagogic
  planners
• I dont want to build the LAMS pedagogic
  planner Id like our community to work together
  to build lots of them!