Abstract
The Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) provides a web-based
environment for the creation, sharing, running and monitoring of
Learning Designs. A central feature of LAMS is the visual authoring
environment, where educators use a drag-and-drop environment to
create sequences of learning activities. The visualisation is based on
boxes representing discrete activity tools (forum, chat quiz, content,
etc.) which are connected together using arrowed lines to indicate the
flow of tasks. This visual approach to authoring of Learning Design
has both strengths and weaknesses: in terms of strengths, it has
provided a common visual language among LAMS users for rapid
adoption and sharing of instructional strategies, and a useful
framework for simple linear pedagogical approaches; in terms of
weaknesses, the visual simplification necessarily limits the amount of
information that can be conveyed about a complex instructional
design, especially those designs not easily adapted to a linear format
(e.g., spiral pedagogies). This paper describes the assumptions behind
the LAMS visual authoring environment at the levels of both educational theory and software design, together with a review of
implementation experiences among educators, including experiences
from the LAMS Community. The paper concludes with reflection on
future directions for visualisation of Learning Design, particularly in
the area of annotation and time-based visualisation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | LAMS and learning design |
| Editors | Chris Alexander, James Dalziel, Jaroslaw Krajka, Richard Kiely |
| Place of Publication | Cyprus |
| Publisher | University of Nicosia Press |
| Pages | 21-35 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Volume | 2 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9789963634958 |
| Publication status | Published - 2011 |