Work is learning. Learning is the work.
OS Software & Content
Via Scott Leslie is this Virtual Learning Envrironment Comparison report from August 2003. The three systems compared are Moodle; Claroline and ATutor.
The author was quite impressed with ATutor’s ease of use for administrators, which reflects our own experience.
Update on Open Source LMS.
Also: Why proprietary LMS’s do not meet the needs of higher education
Moodle, an open source course management system, based on a constructivist learning model, has released its latest version. What caught my interest was:
There are over 1,000 registered Moodle users in 75 countries
Moodle has a WebCT quiz import
WYSIWYG editor
"The new multilang filter allows texts to be entered in multiple languages, and only the best one will be shown to each user (depending on their language setting)" [ I like that!]
Keep up the good work Martin.
Via Many2Many is this link to Grant Bowman’s list of open source collaborative group software.
This stuff is not for the non-technical, but it’s a good list to start looking at what’s out there if you’re thinking about trying out wikis, blogs, CMS, etc., and don’t want to blow your budget.
Via EdTechPost comes this well-written criticism of open source software applications. Michelle Levesque cites the major problems as being:
Poor user interface design
Lack of documentation
Feature-creep
Made by programmers for programmers (not focused on a target audience)
Blindness to other non-OS developed functions & features
This shows once again that there is a potential business model in adding value (by addressing these five problem areas) and selling open source related services & add-ons. The JBoss.com model seems to be a good example of this.
Project Avalanche is a new US-based cooperative, serving the technology needs of a wide variety of companies.
A for-profit initiative, chartered by a group of companies, to reduce the cost and increase control over mission-critical software. Members of the Cooperative share intellectual property (IP) and collaborate on projects that generate IP. Our subscriber agreement enables IP to be shared by and between the Cooperative and our members, and collaborations to be pursued, without legal liability risks. The Cooperative was incorporated under Minnesota Cooperative Statute 308B. Consultants, as well as hardware and software vendors, may also become members.
This is an example of a new business model for the networked environment. It is a for-profit cooperative, and its aim is to reduce members’ dependence on IT vendors. I agree with the official perspective of the coop, in that it’s not your technology that gives you a competitive advantage but your "company’s strategy, leadership and other human talent".
I think that we will be seeing more cooperatives like this in the future.
AP report available, but requires log-in on MLive.com.
The Globe and Mail has covered the recent launch of Lawrence Lessig’s new book Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and The Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. The book is available free for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons license. Since the online book launch, volunteers have already created audio versions of each chapter, also available for free non-commercial use.
This story follows on the heals of a Canadian federal court ruling that making files available for sharing on the Internet does not constitute copyright infringement. However, big media would have you believe that making content available for free has a detrimental affect on sales. This assumption has been proven incorrect by a recent Harvard Business School study, showing that the number of music file downloads has no relation to in-store CD sales.
The real story here is that the Internet has turned traditional business assumptions upside down. According to McLuhan’s laws of media, every technology has unexpected, and unintended, effects on its users (Extend, Obsolesce, Retrieve, Reverse). Lessig will sell more copies of his book because it is available online for free. This is especially true in his case, because the book is about digital copyright issues. Lessig has not given up his commercial rights, but he has created a legion of potential book buyers, without an expensive marketing campaign.
The lesson for businesses is that you had better understand the medium, and especially its effects, before it flips your business model around. The open source model, applied to open content, can actually be a financially solid business model. Think of it as the whistle-blow of the cluetrain ;-)
The LearnNB website was recently launched as a portal to the learning industry in New Brunswick. The site currently has a recent article on the state of the industry, and you may sign up for the newsletter. More information and tools will follow soon.
Members of the industry met in Fredericton today to get updates on recent initiatives, such as the creation of a local chapter of the Canadian Society for Training and Development, as well as upcoming trade missions to ASTD’s annual conference in May and the CSTD conference in Toronto in November.
There was also some interest in working on open source software applications for learning. If this interests you, please contact me, as we would like to hold a conference on this subject sometime in the next year. Engage Interactive in Fredericton has developed some OS applications, and I know that some of our friends at the NRC elearning research group would be interested.
In an evaluation of v. 2.4 of Groove’s peer2peer software (v 3.0 is out in beta), a group of francophone reviewers looked at its functions. Since Groove is already upgrading, I didn’t go into much detail on the tech specs, and will wait until more reports on Groove come out. See my recent post on Groove 3.0.
What I found most interesting is that Groove has no intention at this time to come out with versions in other languages, and is not looking for any volunteers to help with localisation/translation.
Q: Is Groove Networks looking for partners to assist in translating Groove into other languages and/or testing under local environments?
A: No, Groove Networks is not looking for partners to localize Groove software at this time.
Now if you go to the ATutor site, you will see that there are many people working on version translations. The French version of the latest ATutor release came out at the same time as the English.
My point is that if you happen to work in a non-English environment, then open source makes more sense; because you will at least have the option to do your own translation.
Last April, in a letter to the Treasury Board, the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance urged the Canadian government to support the use of open source and open standards.
These governments have been attracted to Open Source because it provides a foundation for lowering costs while increasing stability, scalability and security. This change in procurement strategy provides an opportunity for our members to capture new markets.
I made a similar recommendation to the New Brunswick government during their recent pre-budget consultations. Too bad I hadn’t seen this letter earlier. Notice how CATA believes that open source/standards would be advantageous for its SME’s (small and medium enterprises).
Thanks to Seb for pointing to this.
Un syst?ɬ®me de gestion de contenu disponible en fran?ɬßais.
Nuxeo CPS is a collaborative web content management system based on Zope, which is written in Python. According to the originators, users can create and manage content in Workgroups and publish them in Publications spaces through a dedicated workflow. Nuxeo CPS also features: office document integration, versioning; attached comments; etc.
The commercial version of Nuxeo is available in French only.