elmsln @ opened 14

Project Lead

ELMS Initiative

Instructional Systems Architect

E-Learning Institute

College of Arts & Architecture

Penn State University

@btopro (aka Bryan Ollendyke)

UX Lead

ELMS Initiative

Instructional Technologist

Office of Digital Learning

Eberly College of Science

Penn State University

@_mike_collins (aka Michael Collins)

Who else is involved?

Penn State University

College of Arts & Architecture

Eberly College of Science

College of Health & Human Development

College of Agricultural Sciences

Rock Ethics Institute

University of Wisconsin

Law School

Center for Patient Partnerships

Developer

Inst. Designer

Designer

Student

Awarded Grant

Past Grant

Technically speaking, ELMSLN is a series of networked Drupal sites per course.

Automation / DevOps keep the process manageable

New fully configured Drupal-based RESTful networks are built on demand.

New ideas New configuration New domain New tool

What is it?

Suite of tools approach to LN design

Why another solution in this space

“our space” has a lot of problems worth

solving…

Problem (5 of 99)

Instructional designers have little

influence over technological direction

when using products from vendors.

Problem (42 of 99)

Regardless of solution,

satisfaction ratings for LMS

solutions are often low.

Problem (54 of 99)

Huge amounts of time and

money are being spent

identifying technology solutions

Problem (55 of 99)

Huge amounts of time and

money are being spent wasted

identifying technology solutions

Penn State spent two years

deciding they didn’t know what they

want

What’s not to love?ANGEL 2001

The LMS of todayANGEL 2014

Click here if you are

using a PDA!

The LMS of {time}{insert name}

{insert year}

No more PDA icon!

Why others are failing

The modern LMS…

Which is any LMS…

LMS

mail

rosters

grades

rubrics

forums

content

syllabus

collaboration

multimedia

…

Features

Behold, the one true

tool all instructors

and students will

love!

LMS

mail

rosters

grades

rubrics

forums

content

syllabus

collaboration

multimedia

…

Features

Single point of

functionality

LMS

mail

rosters

grades

rubrics

forums

content

syllabus

collaboration

multimedia

…

Features

Single point of

functionality

success

LMS

mail

rosters

grades

rubrics

forums

content

syllabus

collaboration

multimedia

…

Features

Single point of

functionality

success

failure

I hope everyone likes it, because

it’s not changing anytime soon!

I hope everyone likes it, because

it’s not changing anytime soon!

Spoiler Alert:

Someone always doesn’t like

it.

Don’t believe me?

And instructors do this… LMS

mail

rosters

grades

rubrics

forums

content

syllabus

collaboration

multimedia

…

Features

blog

multimedia content

(fragmentation)

PII Concerns

UX | Multiple Logins

Data Retention / Security Policies

Support for unknown services

Accessibility?

And this sucks…

Failure?What will happen if we can’t solve

these issues?

Or aren’t allowed to fix them?

Innovative ideas will still happen

they just won’t be implemented

sustainably!

Let’s support all types of students and instructors

Lets unlock our educators’ access to influence technology!

Learning technology should be

designed for disruption.

Period added for emphasis

Instructors like to invent new ways of

educating. Why wouldn’t we enable them?

Continuous & Tailored

Continuous and tailored innovation is better than

incremental improvements based on mass consensus.

How do we accomplish

without going insane?

Continuous and tailored innovation

..or at least it’s philosophy of design

Get off the islandWe need to look outside traditional

edtech for the solutions to save

edtech (from itself)

but don’t start from scratch

Web Services

How we will accomplish continuous

and tailored innovation in ed-tech…

Automation at scale

How we structure systems can

change now that we don’t need to

scale physical support staff to

manage the same thing

PersonalizationWe can manage intense

customization within well framed,

flexible parameters

media.site.com

courses.site.com

blog.site.com

analytics.site.com

interact.site.com

studio.site.com

online.site.com

lms.site.com

SCIENCE

101

media.site.com

courses.site.com

blog.site.com

analytics.site.com

interact.site.com

studio.site.com

online.site.com

lms.site.com

ART 101

media.site.com

courses.site.com

blog.site.com

analytics.site.com

interact.site.com

studio.site.com

online.site.com

lms.site.com

READING 101

media.site.com

courses.site.com

blog.site.com

analytics.site.com

interact.site.com

studio.site.com

online.site.com

lms.site.com

Each course is a network of systems

(Stack)

New tool

What about UX?

ANGEL

data

ANGEL

data

Moodle

Canvas

Anything w/API…

this is not new though..

What does this mean for OER?

We have options!

1. Content can be completely open (cloud hosted)

2. Open content and copyrighted content can be mixed

together, but shown appropriately

3. Assignments and assessments can be University hosted

4. Drupal can get data in/out in MANY formats

contextually rewritten content

Current Students

Past Students

Tokenizing course logistics too!

ELMSLN Techthe best of open source unite to save

edtech!

Impact on

• “I think there is great value in perfecting

technologies that set out to eliminate the

webmaster, the developer, and the designer.” –

Dries Buytaert 2007

http://buytaert.net/drupal-and-eliminating-middlemen

ELMS Initiative contributions have been downloaded

over 766,000 times

and have more then

11,900 reported installs

*reported installs typically assumed ~10% actual value

Impact on

Drupal developers are constantly making the Learning Network

better through contributed module fixes and improvements, allw

ithout any knowledge of ELMSLN or need to care about edtech.

Impact on

Example systems

Piwik

MOOC

MOOC

MOOC

MOOC

MOOC

CIS

Studio

Media

The future

Courses need a lot

of stuff…

We want it to be

easy to keep track of

it all!

Then put that stuff into

the course…

…without pasting HTML

into a WYSIWYG.

Or needing a designer

ELMSLN Content & Layout UI Mockup

Content editors should never have

to worry about accessibility

Accessibility standards are built into

ELMSLN themes and content/layout

workflow.

Get your hands on it.

You can do this!

elmsln.org

Try it out in VagrantYou can’t break anything, it’s not a real thin

g.

https://github.com/btopro/elmsln-vagrant

or clone the project on a server

Auto-magically!

https://github.com/btopro/elmsln

INSTALL.txt

Not a developer?1. Apply for grants and hire developers to work on

an aspect of the project you are interested in(We have 2 innovation grants currently)

2. Read the ELMSLN white paper, pass it on

3. Contribute graphic design (UX team needs help!)

4. Build themes

5. Manage projects

6. Contribute feedback to ongoing projects

1. A technology & online learning innovation platform

2. Suite of tools approach

3. Keeping from chaos via DevOps

4. Expects the world will change

Questions

@btopro

elmsln.org