What do teachers want from Learning Design? James Dalziel Professor of Learning Technology & Director, Macquarie University E-learning Centre of Excellence (MELCOE) Director, LAMS Foundation; Director, LAMS International Pty Ltd ; Presentation for UNFOLD Conference, Glasgow, 12 th October, 2005

Overview Background to LAMS LAMS Development Principles Evaluations and Feedback LAMS Community Principles Questions and Discussion

What is LAMS? LAMS is a unified learning design system, including: –Visual “drag and drop” authoring environment –Monitoring environment for tracking individuals and classes –“Run-time” learner environment, incorporating a suite of activity tools (forum, chat, etc) –Administration environment for user/organisational management –SSO integration with LMSs (Moodle, Blackboard, Sakai, etc) LAMS is open source software (GNU GPL) LAMS has been under development for 3.5 years, in live classroom beta trials for 2 years, and released as an OSS production version for 6 months

Is LAMS a Learning Design system? LAMS is based on the concept of “learning design”, defined as “people doing activities using resources/environments” LAMS is “inspired” by the IMS Learning Design specification, but is not a reference implementation LAMS provides an XML import/export format (“LAMS LD”) that can be (partially) mapped to IMS LD –See Oxford TIP report In LAMS V1.1 (next major release), it will support IMS LD Level A (with and without extensions) as well as “LAMS LD” XML Problems with IMS LD contributed to Valkenburg group

Example of Creating Learning Designs using LAMS Authoring

Example of Learner Environment for LAMS Learning Design

Evolution of LAMS Principles Phase 1: “Guess” what teachers might want – Phase 2: Show teachers a system, gather feedback – Phase 3a: Create a community for LAMS development –2005 onwards Phase 3b: Create a community for sharing re-usable resources –Wider set of principles for encouraging sharing NB: “Teacher” covers all educators/trainers, but schools/universities have been primary target to date NB: “What do teachers want from LD?” is based on my experiences from LAMS, but much can be generalised

LAMS Development Principles LAMS was not simply an R&D project, it was always planned to create production software for “real” use in schools, universities, etc –Including both synchronous (eg, computer lab) and asynchronous (distance learning) contexts Initial major focus was on activity tools development –Rather than expecting these to be external to an LD system Innovation was seen as crucial – LD was a new area Collaborative activity tools were relatively more important than complex single-learner sequencing Authoring (and adaptation) should be easy and rapid –A few minutes to a few hours

LAMS Development Principles The target audience for LAMS users was the typical teachers/lecturer, not specialist instructional designers, or XML-fluent researchers, or central production units –Visual authoring environment –No XML of any kind –Simple, forms-based activity configuration –Constrain the huge variety of possibilities imagined in IMS LD to a manageable set based on partially-configured activity tools LAMS “sequences” (or learning designs) should be easily shared and adapted –Group areas within a LAMS server –Import and export option – share via LAMS Community,

Evaluations & Feedback LAMS evaluations to date: –Kemnal Technology College (initial trials) – BETT slides 04 –Oxford University (on behalf of JISC trial with 16 universities and 15 TAFEs) – JISC report –BECTA evaluation of UK school trial (40 schools) – Interim report –NSW DET evaluation of 5 schools (report not yet released) Some themes: –Increased student motivation/engagement & enjoyment –Teachers found it prompted reflection on their teaching –Workload sometimes increased, sometimes decreased (may depend on lifecycle of use – more to start, then less later?) –Sharing is starting to happen, but there is much to learn about how to best support and encourage it

Evaluations & Feedback Some examples of teacher requests and response: –“Preview” important for authoring (eg, JISC trial) Implemented Jan 05, positive response –Survey tool for capturing learner responses (JISC trial) Implemented Jan 05, positive response –Integrate richer text and web content into activities RTF editor for noticeboard in Apr 05, HTML noticeboard Oct 05 RTF editor for all tools in V1.1 –Integrate with LMSs SSO: Moodle, Blackboard, Sakai, WebCT,.LRN, etc – see Tools integration: ? (possible in V1.1 using tool interface) –Portfolio export HTML/Text record of individual student activities for V1.1 HTML/Text record of all class activities for teachers for V1.1

Evaluations & Feedback Some examples of teacher requests and response: –Languages other than English Internationalisation of LAMS for V1.1 –Branching/Grouping More advanced grouping in V1.1, more branching V1.2 –Edit sequences on the fly Can see where in Monitor – Sequence tab – planned for V1.2 –Wizard “Author Xpress” prototype example –Instant Messaging Allow teacher to learners, and L2L messaging in V1.1 –Offline text editing once sequence structure in place Yet to explore – could use custom OpenDocument format?

Some Development challenges Integrated platform or distributed web services? –“Quality of service” problem What is the role of the LMS? –What does LD to LMS integration mean? What is needed for a Learning Design “tools interface/contract/API”? What to do with problems or gaps in IMS LD? How to balance innovation with interoperability? –Especially for a new technology area like LD Balancing complexity and simplicity –Features for “innovators” vs the simple needs of “early majority”? How to handle multi-learner sequencing, branching, etc?

Some Development challenges Single biggest challenge? …Funding for core development

LAMS Community Principles 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

LAMS Community Principles 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

LAMS Community Principles LAMS Community based on the suggested principles –Launch next week – to complement 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

LAMS Community Principles Initial community structure: –Educational Community Getting Started K-12 Schools Higher Education Research and Development –Technical Community –LAMS Lounge Will add new communities as need grows –Can be closed or open Technical community will become the home of the LAMS open source development community Join at

LAMS Community example – Community view (K-12)

LAMS Community example – Sequence Repository

LAMS Community challenges Any flaws in the LAMS Community assumptions, or…. the assumptions are right, but: Teachers don’t want to share –But only some need to share (most OSS users are not code contributors) – what is needed to foster enough sharing? Teachers don’t have time –But some find time regardless – how many, though, are needed to create a viable community, and will this require funding to create critical mass? Failure to strike the right balance between pre-built sequences and templates –This may vary between sectors (schools vs universities) Other reasons?

Questions and Discussion Principles for LAMS development Evaluation and Feedback Principles for LAMS Community Challenges