More from Jon Mott at BYU...The End in Mind » A Post-LMS Manifesto
"While LMS providers are making laudable efforts to incrementally make their tools more social, open, modular, and interoperable, they remain embedded in the classroom paradigm. The paradigm—not the technology—is the problem. We need to build, bootstrap, cobble together, implement, support, and leverage something that is much more open and loosely structured such that learners can connect with other learners (sometimes called teachers) and content as they engage in the authentic behaviors, activities and work of learning.
Building a better, more feature-rich LMS won’t close the 2-sigma gap. We need to utilize technology to better connect people, content, and learning communities to facilitate authentic, personal, individualized learning."My two cents: There is no doubt the landscape in technology, LMS and all related tools will continue to move. That's why our focus needs to be on philosophy and goals (e.g. learner centered, personal learning networks, or whatever) first and foremost. Who's to say that Blackboard won't next be bought by Microsoft or Sun or _____? Vendor dependence vs. vendor relationship management presents interesting challenges but not new challenges. This latest purchase of one company by another is not earthshattering in the sense of a new paradigm. It simply should remind us all of the folly in placing institutional outcomes in the hands of vendors whose goals, performance, and incentives are not aligned with that of my institution. Nor should they be. What are the two phrases we all learned in economics class - "buyer beware - caveat emptor, and "there are no free lunches". Good time to remember it.
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