One key decision in design of an MLE is how to get the best return from the funding available? Is it to subsidise the move to an approved MLE (or LMS), as in the SMS activity? Or is there another, more suitable option, given the learning from the SMS work and the relatively low uptake of LMS by schools (2400 schools use one of 10 SMS and 460 one of 12 LMS)?
After much discussion and debate the decision was made that the Ministry would neither mandate nor fund usage of an LMS or MLE. Rather, the effort and investment would be on interoperability between application/modules and services that constitute an MLE, improving both the user experience and the value for money.
The learning management system(LMS) is a key component of the MLE (TKI holds an interest information sheeton why to use an MLE/OLE), core or central even for the foreseeable future. By this I mean that other services, modules and applications in the teaching and learning aspect of schools will ‘plug into’ or interface with the LMS.
Therefore, a key question is how many LMS should there be, or at least how many should the Ministry invest in? The lower the number the further the interoperability money goes, but the less selection for schools, the greater the risks if one/some prove unsuitable. The higher the number the more likely a school will find one they like, but the investment money gets spread further.
With a slight distortion of the economic concept of marginal utility, the first LMS would offer the greatest value, with each subsequent LMS adding less value than the previous one. However, having only one would represent a monopoly, at least in receiving Ministry funding (schools remain free to select and use any LMS they like). This introduces risks like higher prices, less innovation, a risk of failure and the costs associated with changing provider.
And what about the prevalence of open source software (e.g. Moodle), where in theory more than one vendor could offer competing business models (e.g. based on different levels of service and price) from the same code base. In this scenario the benefit of each dollar spent on interoperability could be appropriated by all the schools that were clients of the two vendors.
So, the million dollar question is how many LMS (or code bases) is ideal? And to get you started the view of the school-Ministry reference group is 2, 3 or 4.
Tags: Add new tag, LMS, MLE
November 12, 2008 at 10:36 am
Zero could be the answer to your question. Internationally, I see school systems showing better gains (in terms of students on-task measures, utilisation and transformation of learning and teaching measures) from implementing ’safe containers’ into which learners and teachers can drop their Web 2 collaborative learning tools. ePortfolio environments for student co-construction are more important for the development of 21st Century learning skills than are traditional LMS’s that automate a 19th Century process of teachers pushing information to students, turning teachers into over-burdened quasi-Webmasters. Thought leaders abroad are not pushing LMS’s, they are pushing collaboration tools and approaches to systemic changes that leverage the transformational, not just automation, of learning. SMS is about efficiency, learning environments are more about transformation and relevance to students in the digital age. Social learning/Web 2.0 tools come naturally to students (and many teachers), LMS’s do not necessarily.
November 13, 2008 at 2:12 pm
A good point, Mark. I (and the reference group) \agree with you on the ‘dated’ nature of LMS as traditionally used and where the transformational value is. We also realise that the approach to using tools must be sustainable from a workload and cost perspective and therefore see that the role of the LMS will change over time to be the ‘washing line’ on which other services/modules/applications hang. As such, the tender starts with a description of an LMS as it is currently know but seeks to evolve these tools to be a ‘hub’ around which collaborative tools (the transformational ones) can galvanise. This is shown in the diagram and the reason for the focus on modularity, interoperability and openness.
There are a number of reasons for this approach:
- starting with the familiar and building on this has a lower risk profile;
- desire to make the activities manageable for teachers, where interaction is normally with a ‘class sized’ group;
- a store for data required to launch software supported learning activities (e.g. class/group membership, demographics, etc) that is entered once into the SMS and then slaved to the LMS; and
- focus on schools as an organisation being responsible to support the education needs of many individuals
It might be that a different term is required for LMS as they become this (c.f. a course structuring tool), so open to suggestions on what this might be. I am currently at the IDEA conference in Melbourne and right across Australia the same trend is evident.
Once through the tender process I am keen to open up the online space of the reference group to others and try to seed a wider participation.
February 16, 2009 at 11:30 am
The real question is whether this approach best serves the needs of schools. Using the SMS as an example, given that the Ministry requires all schools to collect the data and strongly encourages them to install an SMS, would not this requirement best be served by the Ministry providing a standardised SMS system to schools as is done in other countries (and states, e.g. Australia)
Therefore the LMS approach appears destined to produce the same kind of difficulties that some schools are experiencing in an SMS, relying largely on the vendor and word of mouth, and putting all of the risk onto Boards to make the informed decision while the Ministry practices a risk-averse approach.
February 16, 2009 at 8:45 pm
I agree with you that the needs of schools must be well served, which is why for this important decision my team formed a principals’ reference group and travelled to hear the views of school staff. All the activites of the SMS team are aimed to support schools and ensure thing work as well as possible for them.
The NZ school system in which we both work is based on a premise that school can and do make good decisions. The Ministry’s role is often to provide to schools good information, sometimes to provide funding subsidies, to develop standards and specifications, to mediate in disputes between schools and vendors, and to inform/educate school staff so even better outcomes can be made.
No decision process, whether run by 2500 schools individually with Ministry support or by the Ministry on behalf of all these schools can produce results that all school arer always happy with.
School satisfaction in jurisdictions where there is one system selected is no higher than here and introduces many other issues. In fact, officials in some of those areas wish they were permitted to take the sort of calculated risks that schools have allowed the SMS team to take. A standard tender and monopoly supply decision might be the safer option?