Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Some exciting developments.



Three recent announcements should create some excitement for eLearning and Learning Management in the education sector.

Pearson Education is a major supplier of materials for the education market but has had relatively little impact in the LMS world. They recently purchased eCollege and Fronter and have now introduced a free on-line LMS they call OpenClass. Time will tell if this proves to be a viable alternative for Moodle and Blackboard. Check it out at http://www.joinopenclass.com/.

Ali Jafari of Indiana University who has previously developed Angel Learning and Epsilen Environment will shortly be announcing the availability of CourseNetworking which is described as follows: CourseNetworking (CN) is a free, online platform that connects teachers and students from around the world based on shared interests and class subjects. It combines the social component of popular networks such as Facebook and Twitter with similar functionality of existing learning management systems (LMS) used at many colleges and universities. Unlike existing learning systems, though, which typically limit access to members of a single course, CN creates an active, large-scale learning environment that is completely open to any user, nationally and internationally."
This could revolutionize the way we approach learning. Check out the announcement at http://coursenetworking.com/pressrelease.pdf.

Another announcement offers some new flexibility for course authoring. BreakthroughPerformanceTech LCMX
is described as an extended Learning Content Management System that “allows courseware authors to leverage their learning content and present it in countless different ways for a wide variety of target platforms and in a remarkably short timeframe.” It will be announced in Nov. 2011. See the article at http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/771/?utm_campaign=lsmag&utm_medium=email&utm_source=lsm-news.