(photo by LAMS tool Adaptor)

Ernie over at LAMS has been working on LAMS "Tool Adaptors".  These allow you to use the LMS, e.g. Moodle, .LRN, tools such as Forum, inside of LAMS with far more integration.

 Main page on Tool Adaptors: http://wiki.lamsfoundation.org/display/lams/Tool+Adapters

 The secret to understanding this is to go into the .LRN and Moodle pages and watch the vidoes of the Forums integration.

 But the real power and promise isn't in using Forums, its the concept of being able to integrate tools from the LMS in rich ways with LAMS.  That opens up a wide world of possiblities for creating customized solutions for learning.

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(photo by Moodle Teaching Techniques by William Rice)

I love the preface to William Rice's book "Moodle Teaching Techniques".

Rice says,

"While most [software manuals] do a good job of telling you how to perform tasks, that is, what buttons to push and menus to choose, they often leave the two most important questions unanswered:

What effect will doing this have on your audience's experience?

When would you want to do this?"

We are getting very close to having an integrated Moodle+ELGG+LAMS product and I'm realizing that we will need to write exactly this type of manual and/or training.  As Rice puts it, "we need to combine 'keystroke-and-click' directions with advice on how to make the best use of the solutions and what effects it will have on student's experiences."

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"LAMS creates "digital lesson plans" that can be run online with students, as well as shared among teachers. The LAMS Community allows teachers to share and adapt digital lesson plans, and discuss their experiences of using LAMS." "The LAMS Community is central to our strategy of empowering teachers to transform education using the revolutionary digital lesson planning approach offered by LAMS. Educators can now freely and openly share 'best practice teaching' in a way never seen before in the history of education," said Professor James Dalziel, leader of LAMS. "We chose .LRN for its sophisticated community management functions, complementary feature set, and our shared open source philosophy," Dalziel said.

John Norman, Director of the Cambridge University Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technology praised the LAMS/.LRN collaboration, saying, "Both .LRN and LAMS have set the pace in the development of collaborative/active learning platforms for higher education. This integration and co-operation between the two projects will create a powerful learning environment for students".

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