[...] Via Stephen Downes, is this post by Michael Feldstein that Blackboard (aka BlackWeb) has been granted a US patent on the learning management system (LMS). My initial reaction was indignation that a greedy corporation was once again trying to stifle innovation in education. Then I read Brent Schlenker’s reaction to my post on the lack of open source learning applications, and Brent correctly noted that there are a lot of learning applications, just not that many “educational” ones; My point is that we don’t need any specific open source learning applications.Â That would be just another thing that people need to learn…another interface to learn…another login id and password to remember.Â We are at our best when we evaluate the existing technologies and leverage them for the purpose of learning.Â We are at our worst when we try to create our own little system and call it the Learning thingy. …