Category Archives: 21st Century Learning

Why the Startup Weekend at Notre Dame’s Innovation Park Excites Me

Posted on March 21, 2012 | 1 comment

54 hours. Friday April 13th at 6pm until Sunday April 15th at 3pm. Go home to sleep when/if they kick us out or you just can’t think another thought.

What we hope to accomplish: Lay the groundwork to start one or more new businesses in South Bend. Period.

What participants get paid: Nada. In fact, tickets to the event are $99.

Who will be the participants?

People like me. Really. People who care about our community and want to give back of our talents and creativity. People who can envision their satisfaction when driving by that new area business and being able to say, “I helped do that. I had a hand in designing their business model.” (Or coding their product, or designing their user experience or marketing their business).

People not like me. Some younger. Those testing their wings as entrepreneurs during their college careers at IU South Bend, Notre Dame, IU Purdue, and Bethel, all local area colleges. (Students only $50). Some older. Community Leaders. Businessmen who’ve done it already. Captains of Industry, if you will.

If you catch what I mean, click and register. See you there!

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Posted in 21st Century Learning, Current Affairs, Here at Notre Dame, Off Topic, professional development, Web/Tech

Trends in learning management systems

Posted on January 23, 2012 | Comments Off on Trends in learning management systems

The dots I’m connecting here:

As there are two kinds of ePortfolios, there are now two classes of systems which help facilitate learning. I’ve blogged before on what we should call the one system. Well, I think the industry has chosen to continue to have both. On the one hand, we have a learning management system (LMS), the child of the course management system (CMS). This type of system is managed by an institution of higher learning for purposes of providing controlled interaction for formal learning situations resulting in grades and a diploma. We can continue to call it an LMS. To be clear, there are a number of products which could be configured to meet this goal, or configured to meet the next goal. What we call it is dependent on who it’s configured to serve, the student or the institution.

We now begin to see systems, or collections of systems, serving the purpose of fostering and collecting informal and formal learning of students and adults alike. They have these attributes in common:

Student-centric. I can configure how I want to be messaged when a new grade is posted, a new assignment given. I can configure my own blogs, wikis, links to other places I learn outside of my institution, I can receive messages relevant to my learning interests and formal classes. I can form my own ad hoc groups.

Account life. While this system may be hosted by a formal institution of higher learning, provision is made for me to either have access beyond graduation or take it with me.

Copyrighted material can still be accessed after the course is over.

Privacy. There is none. Everyone understands to learn from others, I have to share what I know. Or what I don’t know (my questions). By giving up my privacy in any given domain, I can earn my own “cred” as a learner in that field. I need to willingly agree to carry that risk myself.

These kind of systems, shall we call them Collaborative Learning Environments (CLE) ?

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Posted in 21st Century Learning, LMS, lms evaluation