Teaching+Without+a+CMS-+WCET

In just over 10 short years CMS have gone from become prototypes that were freely given away to entrenched "enterprise" systems costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Yet they have not substantially improved the quality of the online education experience and are NOT the only way to teach and learn online.

Last year I did a talk where I discussed some of the factors influencing the future direction of CMS and online learning.

This year I'd like to instead just look at some specific examples and briefly talk about why you thin these shouldn't be the future of teaching online.

Example 1 - either Liz Lawley or Barbra Ganley teaching out in the open with blogs Problems?

Example 2 - David Vogt and David Porter with Crowdsource and Youtube Problems?

Example 3 - David Wiley's Open Education grad course Problems?

The problems we're seeing here are technical problems. Which means they are solvable problems.

Indeed the problems we are **NOT** seeing here are the pedagogical or learning problems. That is what is attractive about these solutions. They are chosen precisely because they work well for teaching and learning online, ultimately what SHOULD be a faculty member's and student's concern.

We need to figure out how to shift the locus of control back towards faculty and students instead of in the hands of administrators and IT staff. While their concerns are legitimate, they should not be the drivers of the solutions and we need to figure out how to provide solutions which "enable but don't require" and which say "yes before no" and which "allow before they disallow"

- cf http://www.slideshare.net/lisbk/web-20-opportunity-or-threat-for-it-support-staff (slide 19) and http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/no-really-this-is-what-we-want (slide 21)

http://confluence.rave.ac.uk/confluence/display/SCIRCDoL/Blogging+to+Support+Peer-learning+and+Reflection#BloggingtoSupportPeer-learningandReflection-FeedbackWhattutorssaidabouttheunit