LMS is dead?

I am not so certain of the hype that is currently being generated by those who are championing the demise of learning management systems (LMS) because of the advent of Web 2.0 technologies. It is said that the use of Web 2.0 will create a more open and democratic personal learning environments (PLE) which will transfer the power of control back to the individual learners.

This may be true for adult learners working in the marketplace where learning largely occurs in informal settings and at the workplace. These adults would have the motivation and discipline to take up the responsibility to learn because it affects their work performance. Learning is not an option for them, but a necessity for personal development and professional advancement.

But for students who have just come out of their high schools, asking them to take up such responsibilities is almost like throwing them into the pool when they do not know how to swim. Some will make it, but many will not. Pushing them too hard may in the end lead to a revolt. 

We also need to think about the teachers. Are they ready for PLE? How are they to function in such environment? What skills do they need? Are they given the chance and time to develop such skills that would allow them to facilitate the PLEs? Barely have they gotten use to the idea of the LMS, now they have to learn how to share, tag, twitter, follow, blog, embed, subscribe  etc. Will they revolt too?

A proper transition is needed. LMSes are catching up too. Blogs, tags, subscription, journals are now making its way into the LMS environment. Perhaps, we could start off on this and allow the students and the teachers the time to be comfortable before moving them on to the next level. Give them time to change. Play too much the hype and the bubble may burst in the end. 

Resistance against new Facebook?

I am actually quite surprised by the negative reaction from a substantial group of people judging from the number of groups set up just to protest about the Facebook layout and features. Personally I find the new layout extremely practical and easy to use e.g. the ability to make comments to updates as you see it on your wall or in the news. I thought this is really a very quick and good way to directly communicate with the person who has just updated and posted something.

I love the new wall so much until I could no longer remember how the old wall looks like. It allows me to do sending, writing and sharing quickly and efficiently. It tempts me to rethink again why I need to keep my own blogs in another place when the wall itself can function as an effective replacement to my blogs. Writing this note itself feels like I am blogging already. I could easily syndicate feeds from my existing blogs and display them in this area. To me it is really great. The tabs are great too, both at the profile and home page. The location of bookmarks on the right side of the hompage personally works better for me than the old one. And the ease to configure my settings for each application is also great. The applications drop down menu has its strength and weaknesses but overall it works well with me.

So this brings me to think what could be the reason for so many Facebook addicts rejecting the new layout and features. I am contemplating one reason in particular. I am relatively new to Facebook which makes me less difficult to unlearn all the things which one would have picked up after using the old Facebook for sometime. Sometimes what we have learned can be so ingrained in us that we could find it very difficult and uncomfortable when asked to change, especially when we can have no say in the situation or decision making. Could this be the reason? It could be one of the many reasons I guess.

Potential of Web 2.0 and Human Behaviour

While playing a highly addictive game in Facebook, it confirms what I have thinking about the potentials of Web 2.0 applications. I think this new generation of applications basically satisfy the needs of human beings to share our stories (satisfying a powerful need to create meanings in our lives which give us our identities as a person), to connect with others with our stories (thus forming a community that fills the void in us to belong) and to learn and grow from these activities which again fulfills our strongest desire to find meanings in our lives and grow as a human being. When technology is able to meet the core necessities and desire of the human pysche, it will mushroom beyond the designers' wildest dreams. If only education caters for such needs!

The Potential of Facebook

I think the new features in Facebook could really work out for educational use because it is now much easier to aggregate or pull information from various websites and publish it in your profile that could potentially form a personal portfolio that teachers and peers could comment and work on. Google Reader, Facebook Toolbar, Shareaholic are some of the common tools that easily integrate with Facebook.

Lively

I am bought over by the potential of Lively to be used as an educational tool for enhancing greater participation from students to chat or discuss about their subjects of learning. I was never a believer in using Second Life for educational purposes largely due to its cumbersome application which uses a lot of bandwidth, at least in my personal experience. I am also put off by the fact that I had to open another application and interface to conduct my explorations in the virtual world. Lively gives me a new flexibility that I never had with Second Life. I am able to embed my virtual rooms or spaces into existing virtual learning environments simply by pasting the generated script to my web page or blog. In this way, I can encourage students to login to an existing VLE and make use of Lively to conduct educational activities within a virtual academic context which Second Life could not do. I am also interested in the 'lightness' of Lively which requires only a small and simple installation on our desktops. Another feature is its features of deciding on access rights which I could use to formulate open or close tutorial sessions. On top of that, I have the capability to archive all conversations for research, assessment or evaluation.