Forum LAMS Newsletter: LAMS Newsletter 115, 9th December 2014

By: James Dalziel

[ Forward ]

LAMS Conference followup

The 9th International LAMS and Learning Design Conference at NTU in Singapore last week was a great success. We had more than 100 attendees at the main conference and over 40 at LAMS workshops. Ernie Ghiglione has written up a summary of the conference - see the end of this newsletter for details.

Our great thanks to Paul Gagnon and the team at the Lee Kong Chian Medical School and NTU for co-hosting this conference with us, and to our Platinum Sponsor Declara.


Practical eTeaching Strategies book now freely available

At the conference we announced that my Practical eTeaching Strategies book is now freely available. This book provides an overview of 3 teaching strategies - Predict-Observe-Explain, Problem-Based Learning and Role Plays - and how they can be implemented using LAMS templates provided with the book. You can download the book at:
http://www.practicaleteachingstrategies.com/files/LAMSbook2010.Final.pdf
(NB: 10MB file)


LAMS 10,000 milestones

As we approach the end of 2014, we've just passed two significant milestones for LAMS - the LAMS Community now has over 10,000 members, and LessonLAMS also now has over 10,000 users! Thanks to all who've helped make this possible. We're expecting a big year in 2015 with lots of new LAMS features coming - see Ernie's Roadmap conference presentation for more details.

The full LAMS Community stats as at 9th December 2014 are:
Users: 10036
Number of Sequences: 2101
Sequences downloaded: 23137 times
Sequences Previewed: 54764 times
Forum Postings: 8347
Translations to: 33 languages


LAMS Conference summary by Ernie Ghilgione

NB: Links to all the presentations are available at
http://lams2014.lamsfoundation.org/program.html

After a warm welcome from Mr Tay Kheng Tiong, CIO, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), an insightful keynote presentation from Mr. Paul Gagnon (e-Learning Director, Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine -LKC) that set the mindset for the conference around Team Based Learning (TBL) and using LAMS to facilitate it. But differently from all keynotes, Paul created a 5-to-10 minute TBL exercise for all attendees! Within a few minutes we were discussing/sharing in groups and the level of engagement was fantastic! Then, each group share their views with Paul facilitating the conversation in true TBL style. Very original keynote and by the end we had experienced ourselves the benefits of TBL.

Starting a series of excellent presentations, Dr. Bronwen Dalziel from the University of Western Sydney presented on her experience in "Clinical Classroms - reflections on the choice of technologies when creating a new blended learning experience". Bronwen explained the use of technology in a new teaching approach for medical students in order to improve engagement with traditional lecture content.

Following, Miss Lauren Hwang and Mr. Alan Loe presented the holistic approach to LKC e-Learning strategy. Lauren gave a thorough walk thru of the systems that are used at LKC and how they are seamlessly integrated. Then, Alan proceeded to explain how these integrations are put together and the systems interoperability to better support the students and staff

The next presentation was given by Khar Thoe Ng from SEAMEO RECSAM Penang, Malaysia. KT presented on the Challenges in promoting thinking skills attitudes for sustainable living. These include thinking, living and technology skills in Borderless Schools to prepare global players who are enterprising, creative, innovative and lifelong learners.

Dr. Steve Hock Guan Ong from Temasek Laboratories @NTU presented on Implementation of LAMS in Team Based Learning in Engineering, Science and Business. Steve did a great job providing us with an example on how they used TBL in Engineering labs using LAMS to facilitate it. A great insight into how to implement TBL in practice.

After Steve, Mr. Ridwan Bin Othman, Deputy Director at CITS NTU and Chin Hock Tan, presented on Large Class Implementation using LAMS in NTU. Ridwan first described NTU's Online Learning Framework and its components, one of these is LAMS. Then described the implementation of large courses using LAMS, its benefits and problems and further plans for the future to roll LAMS across 1500 courses!

Then, Mr. James Stanbridge from Declara, our conference sponsor, did a presentation and demo on the platform. Declara is a private social network that enables you to find relevant, high quality content and connections to accelerate efficiency. Once we saw Declara in action, I presented the Declara & LAMS integration proposed integration mockups in which we leverage on both products strengths. We all look forward to see the final integration soon.

With Mr. Vincent Quah from Amazon Web Services, we presented the case study for implementing a robust and scalable LAMS system based on Amazon Web Services. Very useful presentation for sysadmins and infrastructure people.

Afterwards it was me again, first introducing to everyone the LAMS team and also the LAMS Roadmap for the next year. Some good insights into what to expect in LAMS in the near/mid future!

And finally, James Dalziel, LAMS founder, closed the conference presenting his keynote called "Next Steps for LAMS and Developing Scenario Learning with Branching". James introduced the Developing Scenario Learning (DSL) and provides an implementation example using LAMS.

Additionally, there's one recorded presentation from Mr. Luca Policastro, (Universita degli Studi di Genova, Italy) titled "Is LAMS an efficient second language teaching and learning tool?".

Posted by James Dalziel