LMS of the future - Deborah Lawson

In reading this article, I was struck by the use of the term "dialogue," as it got me thinking about the tremendous contrast between my undergraduate experience in the 70s and the experience I have had in the COMET program. Other than one senior seminar course, I can't really think of any time I would have applied the word "dialogue" to my undergraduate learning experience at a large public university. As a COMET student, never having set foot on campus (except to graduate), it seems that dialogue has been a major part of the experience, in a very beneficial way.

While the article focuses on the future of higher education, I feel that this type of learning environment needs to be introduced much earlier if it is to be successful. You don't want to ask learners to adjust to an entirely new instructional framework upon entering college. Since K-12 teachers are often hesitant to give students more control of the learning process, they will need support in order to experience the benefits of self-directed learning.

In order to create the type of learning environment described in the article, it would be helpful if future Learning Management Systems included high-quality videoconferencing technologies. Face-to-face contact is important, even in a distance-learning environment, so some ability for all participants to interact via video would be ideal, and may decrease the sense of isolation that some online learners experience.

It would also be ideal for future Learning Management Systems to incorporate more options for mobile devices. The ability to participate via smart phone makes education more accessible. Learners can retrieve course videos and other content on demand. Mobile devices also serve to keep students connected to one another. The article mentions the importance of maintaining the sense of “campus life” in a distance-learning environment. Mobile devices would be ideal for this type of interaction, and would also make it easier for students to collaborate over large geographical distances, as we did in COMET.