LAMS The Learning Activity Management System James Dalziel

LAMS: The Learning Activity Management System James Dalziel Professor of Learning Technology & Director, Macquarie E-Learning Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE) Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia james@melcoe. mq. edu. au www. melcoe. mq. edu. au Presentation for Huazhong Normal University, Wuhan, China, July 10 th, 2006

Overview • Introduction to LAMS • Demonstration of LAMS • LAMS @ MQ and the LAMS Community • From e-learning to learning • LAMS in China • Questions and Discussion

LAMS • World’s leading software for digital lesson plans – 1000 s of users across 80+ countries • Visual “drag and drop” approach to designing activities • Teacher designs activities, then “runs” them with students, and monitors student progress • Freely available as open source software

LAMS • LAMS is successful in all areas of education – Higher education – Schools – Vocational training – Corporate e-learning • Easy to use – can build a lesson in less than 10 minutes • **Lessons can be stored, re-used, adapted and shared

LAMS • LAMS has many uses, eg, it can be used for: – live collaborative activities in a computer lab – online homework activities completed at home or in the library – individual instruction or small group work in classrooms with few computers – dynamic presentations in conjunction with an interactive whiteboard or projector – personalised learning and presenting content (Learning Objects) – collaboration across several educational institutions, even in different countries

LAMS • There is no licence cost for LAMS – it is freely available as open source software – LAMS is freely provided by the non-profit LAMS Foundation • Fee-based services and support for LAMS are provided by a commercial company – LAMS International • Both LAMS Foundation and LAMS International are supported by Macquarie University

LAMS • LAMS trials include: – UK Department for Education and Skills together with the UK Specialist Schools Trust – supporting over 40 UK schools – New Zealand Ministry of Education – supporting over 30 NZ schools, together with polytechnics and universities – UK Joint Information Systems Committee (“JISC”) supporting 15 Further Education and 16 Higher Education institutions in the UK, and development work – Oxford University – Cambridge University – Australian National University & University of Canberra – Nanyang Technological University, Singapore – University of Sussex – National Library of New Zealand – Tasmanian, NSW and South Australian Departments of Education

LAMS • LAMS V 2 Beta released last week, full version due in October 2006 – Many new features – Much greater scalability – “Pluggable” activity tools – Support for languages other than English

LAMS Authoring – Main Page

LAMS Authoring – Forum Setup

LAMS Learner – Forum Summary Page

LAMS Learner – Forum Details Page

LAMS Demonstration 1 • Using LAMS authoring to create activities for individual student study and self-test “About LAMS”

LAMS Demonstration 2 • Using LAMS authoring to create question activities for students before attending a lecture “Statistics and Statistical Reasoning”

LAMS Demonstration 3 • Using LAMS for post-lecture followup – resources, questions and discussion “Statistics and Statistical Reasoning - Followup”

LAMS Demonstration 4 • Using LAMS for online group discussion and debate “What are the qualities of an effective teacher? ”

Questions about Demonstration

LAMS @ Macquarie • Macquarie is rolling out LAMS across the university • Project includes: – Integration with Web. CT (LMS) – Educational Support – Training – Case Studies and Dissemination • Used across many areas: – Eg, Statistics, Management, Education, Innovation, Languages – Student authoring in teacher training courses – Further adoption planned for the future

Sharing Lesson Plans: The LAMS Community • The “LAMS Community” is global website for communities of LAMS users. www. lamscommunity. org – Discuss the use of LAMS, new features, technical issues – **Share sequences, search for sequences, comment on and rate sequences, and get statistics on downloads – Find colleagues with similar interests, form sub-communities • We use Creative Commons “open content” licensing of LAMS sequences • Approximately 1300 members, 80 countries, 100 shared sequences, 600 discussion postings

LAMS Community – View of various communities & forums

LAMS Community – Repository Summary

LAMS Community – Public Sequence Repository

LAMS Community – Detailed view of individual sequence

From “e-learning” to “learning” • Next version of LAMS will allow any activity to be run in online or face to face mode – If you select online, LAMS will configure the relevant environment, link to other activities, etc – If you select face to face, LAMS will be able to print off a set of instructions about how to run the activity without technology, including potential for student worksheets • LAMS becomes a general lesson planning tool, with technology-based delivery of activities as an option

The potential of LAMS in China • LAMS provides a way of describing and sharing “good practice” lessons • China’s education system is growing so rapidly that LAMS could provide a way of disseminating good practice very widely – quickly and inexpensively • LAMS provides potential for better quality assurance of teaching methods across rapidly growing system • Potential benefits not just for universities, but also for schools • Potential integration with LMS, eg, Sakai

Questions & Discussion Followup Question - Evaluations of LAMS Schools - BECTA Interim Report http: //www. cripsat. org. uk/downloads/bectalams/Becta. LAMSInterim. Report. doc BECTA Full Report http: //www. becta. org. uk/research/display. cfm? section=1 Higher Education - JISC Report www. jisc. ac. uk/uploaded_documents/ LAMS%20 Final%20 Report. pdf