Emerging Trends in LMS / Ed Tech Market

"For the past decade, the LMS market has evolved from providing tools that were purchased at the departmental level to enterprise-class systems purchased at the institutional or even system-wide level. However, since about 2004 the market has been fairly consistent, dominated by Blackboard corporate strategy.

Blackboard went public in 2004, signaling a real market worth of investors' attention. In 2005 – 2006, the market was dominated by Blackboard's acquisition of WebCT, the number 2 player in LMS, resulting in a somewhat extended Department of Justice approval cycle. Starting in 2006, Blackboard was awarded the infamous '138 patent and subsequently filed suit against Desire2Learn, the new number 2 player in LMS. About this same time, open source started to become a viable alternative to proprietary systems in general, and Blackboard in particular, in the form of Moodle and Sakai. From 2006 – 2009, open source became fully established for campus-wide or system-wide LMS deployments. In late 2009, Desire2Learn successfully fended off Blackboard patent lawsuits, ultimately resulting in all 38 claims being ruled invalid by a US Court of Appeals. On the heels of these efforts in 2009, Blackboard purchased Angel, taking another competitor out of the market."

(Phil Hill, 4 August 2011, e-Literatee-Literate)

Fig.1 "LMS Market Share", [http://www.deltainitiative.com/higher-education/lms-strategy]

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dis-integrating the LMS: using best-of-breed tools

"Teachers and learners should be encouraged and supported in their efforts to find and use the most appropriate and effective best-of-breed tools outside the LMS. For example, they can post slide presentations on SlideShare, create group collaboration sites on Google, stream and archive lectures on UStream, and build shared resource collections with Delicious. Such tools can be aggregated via course blogs, wikis, or mashup sites like Netvibes.

Some institutions have made significant, pioneering efforts to bridge the gap between the institutional network and the web by integrating Web 2.0 tools with administrative systems. For example, three years ago the University of Mary Washington deployed an instance of WordPress MultiUser (WPMU) as an alternative teaching and learning platform (UMW Blogs). UMW's blog platform blends the LMS and PLN paradigms by integrating their WPMU instance with the university directory, enabling the creation of blogs that automatically enroll students in courses as 'members' of class blogs created by instructors."

(Jonathan Mott, 2010)

Mott, J. (2010). 'Envisioning the Post-LMS Era: The Open Learning Network.' Educause Quarterly 33(1).

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Envisioning the Post-LMS Era: The Open Learning Network

"Institutions, teachers, and learners are increasingly turning to the open architecture and customizability of the web. In doing so, they are leveraging the tools and resources of the larger PLE to create their own personal learning networks (PLNs) to manage information, create content, and connect with others. Whether termed PLEs or PLNs, these approaches '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.' Scott Leslie's impressive collection of PLE diagrams reminds us that PLNs are infinitely configurable to meet individual needs and preferences. They are, after all, 'personal.'

The vision of individually constructed PLNs and their potential to transform learning extends beyond merely aggregating and using a smorgasbord of web-based tools and content. Gardner Campbell advocated the cultivation of 'personal cyberinfrastructures' that teachers and learners can leverage to become the 'system administrators of their own digital lives.' Instead of implementing tools that simply help instructors 'manage learning,' Campbell argued that we should embrace technologies that enable co-learners to frame, curate, share, and direct learning 'engagement streams.' John Seely Brown and Richard Adler argued that learning with Web 2.0 tools is so different that we ought to call it 'learning 2.0.' They asserted that, unlike old passive forms of learning, the new learner-centric paradigm (facilitated and reinforced by new tools) emphasizes participation over presentation, encourages focused conversation over traditional publication, and 'facilitates innovative explorations, experimentations, and purposeful tinkerings that often form the basis of a situated understanding emerging from action, not passivity.' The net result is an 'open participatory learning ecosystem.'"

(Jonathan Mott, 2010)

Mott, J. (2010). 'Envisioning the Post-LMS Era: The Open Learning Network.' Educause Quarterly 33(1).

Fig.1 Vahid Masrour 'synthetic view of what a PLN/E is, and what it enables'.
Fig.2 Scott Leslie 'collection of PLE diagrams'.

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The new definition of scholarship: how will it change the professoriate?

"Several scholars have begun to see change in the definition of scholarship as demanding a change in our understanding of epistemology. Eugene Rice constructs a matrix of knowledge based on dichotomies of active practice vs. reflective observation, and concrete, connected knowing vs. abstract, analytic knowing. He points out that the push for a more concrete, connected way of knowing requires a multidimensional pedagogy. He quotes Cornell West as saying, 'To put it crudely, ideas, words, and language are not mirrors which copy the 'real' or 'objective' world but rather tools with which we cope with 'our' world' (Rice, 1996, p. 16). The stuff of scholarship is all intertwined within itself and connected to real life, not separate from it. The faculty who would engage this pedagogy must have grounding in a rich model of scholarship in order to become what Rice calls a complete scholar:

The complete scholar would have a sense of the way in which different forms of scholarly work interrelate and enrich one another, and would be capable of moving with ease from one scholarly task to another. The tensions between connected knowing and analytical capabilities, on the one hand, and reflection and active practice, on the other, would be nurtured and built upon rather than resisted and minimized (p. 22)."

(Arthur L. Dirks, 4 December 1998)

Rice, R. E. (1996. ). Making a place for the new American scholar (Working paper No. 1). Washington, D.C.: American Association for Higher Education. In Forum on Faculty Roles and Rewards).

Dirks, Arthur L. (1998). The new definition of scholarship: How will it change the professoriate? Published on-line by author (http://webhost.bridgew.edu/adirks/ald/papers/skolar.htm). Bridgewater, Mass. Boston.

Fig.1 A Community Concern, 'Bronx Youth Forum to End School Overcrowding'.

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Using tangible means to illustrate abstract software functionality concepts