From LMS to VLE or from supermarkets to airports: Classifying elearning platforms using metaphors

"This paper presents a rational model developed to make sense of various elearning platforms currently in use in Australian universities. The conceptualisation and organisation of the elearning platforms is underpinned by an educational psychology framework of social construction of meaning, data visualisation and story telling for meaning making. The model explains how various elearning platforms can be integrated to represent a threedimensional, hierarchical construct that has the potential to aid understandings about the utility of information systems (IS) for learning and teaching. The model shows that LAMS, which has gained increasing popularity in Europe (Laurillard & Masterman, 2010), is usefully depicted as a ‘middle ground’ system, successfully bridging conventional LMSs and more advanced IS, referred here as (MU)VLEs (Multi-User Virtual Learning Environments). The model has important implications on how university lecturers, classroom teachers and students come to engage with an increasingly complex elearning environment."

(Eva Dobozy & Patricia Reynolds, LAMS Conference Sydney 2010)

Dobozy, E. & Reynolds, P. (2010). From LMS to VLE or from supermarkets to airports: Classifying elearning platforms using metaphors. Proceedings of the 5th International LAMS Conference 2010. http://lamsfoundation.org/lams2010sydney/papers.htm

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