The LMS is So Web 1.5

The claims Blackboard’s Learn 9 provides a Web 2.0 experience has bothered me for a while now. First, it was the drag-n-drop. While cool, that isn’t Web 2.0 in my opinion. A little more on track is the claim:

The all-new Web 2.0 experience in Release 9 makes it easy to meaningfully combine information from different sources. The Challenges Are Real, But So Are the Solutions

Integrating with a social network like Facebook is a start, but again, in my opinion, it still isn’t Web 2.0.

So, what is Web 2.0? I did some digging. I think the Tim O’Reilly approach meets my expectation best. He quotes Eric Schmidt’s “Don’t fight the Internet.” as well as provide his own more in depth.

Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. (This is what I’ve elsewhere called “harnessing collective intelligence.”) Web 2.0 Compact Definition: Trying Again

Users expect a site on the Internet to meet their needs or they eventually move on to a site which does. There are so many web sites out there providing equivalent features to those commonly found in an LMS. There is the danger of irrelevance. This is why every LMS company or group strives to continually add new features (aka innovating). The bar continually gets raised, so LMS software continually needs to meet this higher standard.

Tim additionally provides some other rules which you can see at the above link.

When an LMS reachs the point where the resources of the Internet helps people learn, then it will be a Web 2.0. As long as an expert or leader imparts knowledge on students, the LMS is still something different than Web 2.0. Sorry…. The irony? This is exactly what Michael Wesch and PLE advocates preach.


4 responses to “The LMS is So Web 1.5”

  1. David Hopkins Avatar

    Thank you for putting into words what I’ve been struggling with for some time. I knew BB9 wasn’t (and shouldn’t claim to be) a Web 2.0 system / tool / VLE / LMS / PLN / etc, but hadn’t thought any more about it.

    Big question; do you consider BB an LMS or VLE .. and is there a difference?

    David.

  2. Ez Avatar

    There may be some cross-ocean confusion in terms. VLE is the favored acronym in the UK while LMS is favored here in the US. Part of this may lie in the UK favored meaning of LMS to refer to a library system. Similarly, we used to call WebCT a CMS for Course Management System until too many confused it with CMS for Content Management System.

    I think of VLE and LMS as being roughly equivalent.

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