ELearning/Course building/Learning platforms

What is a learning platform? In the past this was an easy question, but no longer. The answer used to be a learning platform is a learning management system (LMS). However, we see a rapidly evolving picture, along with virtually every other aspect of education.


1. The old definition of learning platform

At its base, a learning platform is a framework of tools that work “seamlessly” together to deliver learning experiences (Hill, 2012). Learning management systems are complex pieces of software, supported by IT professionals, containing tools like discussion boards and gradebooks (Blackboard calls them building blocks) and a database to keep track of all the relationships between tools, learning materials, weblinks, instructors, students, and so on. LMS companies add new tools like blogs and wikis as they become popular in the larger world and are deemed appropriate as learning tools.

The problem with LMS

While the LMS has become central to the business of colleges and universities, it has also become a symbol of the higher learning status quo (Mott, 2010). Many students, teachers, instructional designers, and administrators consider the LMS too inflexible and are turning to the web for tools that support their everyday communication, productivity, and collaboration needs. George Siemans and Stephen Downes, the “inventors” of the MOOC, bemoan the LMS because of its emphasis on managing, and therefore over-structuring learning (Siemens, 2004). Arvan (2009) views the LMS as the educational equivalent of PeopleSoft – based on transactions, asserting that “teaching and learning are not fundamentally transactional.”

Faculty usage patterns suggest that the LMS is primarily a tool set for administrative efficiency rather than a platform for substantive teaching and learning activities. Several reports confirm that instructors overwhelmingly use content distribution and administrative tools in the LMS while using interactive learning tools only sparingly. They are consistent in the conclusion articulated by Glenda Morgan: "Faculty uses the CMS primarily as an administrative tool … rather than as a tool anchored in pedagogy or cognitive science models” (Mott, 2010). “The LMS serves as an affirming technology of traditional teaching. The instructor doesn’t challenge the LMS very much, and, in turn, the LMS doesn’t challenge the instructor. The student gets the convenience benefit from electronic distribution of documents (and grades) but little more” (Arvan, 2009).

What about MOOCs?

Massive online open courses “integrate the connectivity of social networking, the facilitation of an acknowledged expert in a field of study, and a collection of freely accessible online resources.” Perhaps most importantly, however, MOOCs build on the active engagement of several hundred to several thousand “students” who self-organize their participation according to learning goals, prior knowledge and skills, and common interests. Although it may share in some of the conventions of an ordinary course, such as a predefined timeline and weekly topics, MOOCs generally carry no fees, no prerequisites other than Internet access and interest, no predefined expectations for participation, and no formal credit” (McAuley, 2010). Note that in 2015 we can say the formal credit issue is now “in play.” Although new, open and certainly impactful, MOOCs are still content and instructor-centric, so we can’t really call them “new” in the sense of a paradigm shift. Accompanied by analytics, however, MOOCs are likely to be a part of truly learner-centered learning platforms.

Learning platform redefined

Given the status quo represented by learning management systems such as Blackboard and Moodle, many are looking beyond toward truly learner-centered environments. Hill (2012) offers seven hallmarks of the new learning platform:

While many features are shared between legacy LMS and newer platforms, the core designs are not constrained by the course-centric, walled-garden approach of the LMS.
New platforms tend to be SaaS (software as a service) based on multi-tenant designs. Rather than being an enterprise application customized by each institution, SaaS is a shared platform supporting multiple customers, leveraging the technical backend for sophistication and stability.
New platforms are intended to support and interoperate with multiple learning and social applications, not just as building blocks for the enterprise system, but as a core design consideration.
New platforms are designed around the learner, not administrators, throughout the learning cycle. Learners are not just predefined roles with assigned access levels within each course, but central actors in the system design.
Newer platforms are more social in nature, supporting connections between learners and customized content based on learner needs.
New platforms allow for the discovery of instructional content on the web, self-generated content, and content from other learners.
New platforms include built-in analytics, based on the consolidation of learner data across courses and across institutions. The importance of analytics is described here by Uldrich (2013):

“Critics of online education and MOOCs may delude themselves by thinking an online course can never offer the same level of intimacy or interaction as a traditional college course but they are missing a key component of the MOOC movement: analytics.
What Harvard and other MOOC providers understand is that every time a student interacts with the material on an online course, she provides the institution feedback that allows it to learn a little more about how that student learns. Armed with this information they can then offer future courses designed not only to meet that individual’s specific educational needs but which are delivered in a manner personally tailored to his or her unique learning style.”

New learning platforms

With the negative connotations of “walled” learning management systems, institutions, teachers and learners are increasingly turning to the open architecture and customizability of the web itself. In doing so, they are leveraging the tools and resources of the larger web: “small pieces loosely joined,” a “world of pure connection, free of the arbitrary constraints of matter, distance, and time” (Weinberger, 2002).

While there are subcategories of new learning platforms (personal learning environment, personal learning network, and open learning networks), together they center on four essential elements:

Collect – articles, images, data, ideas, web resources
Create – research, generate and build on ideas, identify, express, write, reflect
Collaborate – link, engage one another, joint projects, synthesis, revision
Communicate – share ideas and information, comment, clarify, question, probe

Note how nicely this sort of platform fits with cyclical, problem-centered, collaborative, and adaptive learning structures.

Here are a few notes on each of the subcategories mentioned earlier.

Personal learning environment (PLE)


2. Symbaloo, a tool aggregator

Systems built around coordinating the connections between the learner and a wide range of services offered by organizations and other individuals, enabling a wide range of contexts coordinated to support the goals of the learner including formal and informal education, work, and leisure activity. "PLEs represent a shift away from the model in which students consume information through independent channels such as the library, a textbook, or an LMS, moving instead to a model where students draw connections from a growing matrix of resources that they select and organize. The use of PLEs may herald a greater emphasis on the role that metacognition plays in learning, enabling students to actively consider and reflect upon the specific tools and resources that lead to a deeper engagement with content to facilitate their learning (Educause, 2009). Advocates believe that this approach is consistent with a competency-based method of awarding credit, where the individual selects from a number of options to gain competence, submitting to evaluation when they feel ready.

Personal learning network (PLN)


3. A personal learning network

While the PLE focuses on systems and technology to pull together learning resources, the PLN emphasizes the human connection among learners. The best learners are likely to utilize both. The PLN consists of relationships between individuals where the goal is enhancement of mutual learning. The currency of the PLN is learning in the form of feedback, insights, documentation, new contacts, or new business opportunities. It is based on reciprocity and a level of trust that each party is actively seeking value-added information for the other (Seaman, 2013).

Open Learning Network (OLnet)

Olnet is a grant funded organization whose purpose is to aggregate, share, debate and improve open educational resources (OER). “The aim of OLnet is to gather evidence and methods about how we can research and understand ways to learn in a more open world, particularly linked to OER, but also looking at other influences. We want to gather evidence together, but also spot the ideas that people see emerging from the opportunities.” While PLE and PLN focus on the individual, OLnet efforts are aimed at accumulating and connecting to high quality learning resources that are free of charge to use.

Resources

LMS websites

We can expect this list to grow and shrink as organizations are created and disappear. One thing is clear: things are changing.

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ELearning/Course building/Learning platforms

The problem with LMS

What about MOOCs?

Learning platform redefined

New learning platforms

Personal learning environment (PLE)

Personal learning network (PLN)

Open Learning Network (OLnet)

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