Forum LAMS Newsletter: Newsletter 73, 18th Dec, 08


 
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1: Newsletter 73, 18th Dec, 08
12/17/08 06:55 PM
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2009 European LAMS Conference dates announced: July 6-8th in UK

The 2009 European LAMS Conference will be held in the UK in conjunction with the Open University. We're also organising a more general Learning Design discussion and "Design Bash" with JISC & CETIS to follow the main LAMS conference. The planned schedule is as follows:

Monday July 6th: Summit on Pedagogic Planners or LAMS Training Workshop
Tuesday July 7th: 2009 European LAMS and Learning Design Conference
Wednesday July 8th: "Design Bash" and Learning Design discussion event with CETIS and JISC

For those who may be able to join us - please mark these dates in your diary now. We'll provide more details about the event, and submission processes for paper/presentation proposals, in early 2009.

Many thanks to Grainne Conole and colleagues at the Open University, Sheila MacNeill at CETIS and Sarah Knight at JISC for their enthusiasm to help make these events possible.

3rd International LAMS and Learning Design Conference followup

We had a fantastic conference on December 4th and 5th at Macquarie University - over 100 people attended, and there were many great sessions on all aspects of using LAMS. As with past conferences, we try to make as many slides and audio recordings available as possible - most are now up at
http://lams2008sydney.lamsfoundation.org/program.htm

New LAMS International Partner in Singapore - Nanyang Technological University

During the LAMS conference, I was pleased to announce a new LAMS International partner in Singapore - Nanyang Technological University (NTU). We've worked with Daniel Tan, Paul Gagnon and colleagues at NTU for many years on LAMS, especially their integration of LAMS with Blackboard and their use of LAMS in distance education courses. The full press release about this announcement is available at the end of this newsletter.

New LAMS Foundation website

We've completed a major redevelopment of the LAMS Foundation website - it has a more modern look and feel, and easier navigation to find key LAMS resources such as links to documentation, demonstration accounts, downloads, etc. The new site can be viewed at
http://www.lamsfoundation.org/

LAMS V2.2 released

As foreshadowed in the last newsletter, LAMS V2.2 was released at the 3rd International LAMS and Learning Design conference. The LAMS demonstration account server has been updated with V2.2, so if you already have an account on this server, you can try out V2.2 immediately - if you don't have an account on this server, you can sign up for a V2.2 account at
http://demo.lamscommunity.org/

The feature list of LAMS V2.2 is available at
http://wiki.lamsfoundation.org/display/lams/LAMS+2.2+Feature+List

To download LAMS V2.2 from scratch, or get the V2.2 update for existing LAMS versions, see
http://wiki.lamsfoundation.org/display/lams/Downloads

LAMS Community statistics

It's been awhile since I've published the LAMS Community statistics, so to mark our progress at the end of 2008, here are the statistics as at 18/12/08:

Users: 3872
Number of Sequences: 319
Sequences downloaded/previewed: 9711 times
Forum Postings: 4108
Translations to: 27 languages

Maybe we'll hit 10,000 downloads/previews by the time of the next newsletter! Best wishes to all for Christmas and the New Year - the next LAMS Community newsletter will be in late January/early February.

Press Release: LAMS International announces partnership with Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
5 December 2008, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

LAMS International Pty Ltd and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) officially announced their partnership at the 3rd International LAMS and Learning Design conference. The partnership will see NTU become the official Training Centre for LAMS in Singapore.

LAMS International Pty Ltd and NTU have a longstanding relationship both in the promotion and development of LAMS -- with NTU being the first university to fully integrate LAMS within its edveNTUre eLearning system as a Blackboard Building Block. LAMS recognises the unique and substantive application by NTU's Centre for Educational Development in the use of LAMS to advance its blended learning model; and sees NTU as a key partner in the evolving adoption of LAMS in the local Singapore and regional education and training sectors.

'When we first explored the concept of Reusable Learning Objects (or RLOs) way back in 2002, we realised that it represented one track of a railway line. The other track is the concept of adaptive and reusable learning paths that will allow such RLOs to be plugged in/out easily, and reused in other courses and contexts. " said Professor Daniel Tan, the Director of the Centre for Educational Development (CED) at NTU. 'When I heard James Dalziel sharing about LAMS at an eAgenda event, I knew my eyes had seen the future. We have progressed together a long way from then. Today marks a partnership that history may well one day identify as an important milestone in the development of online courseware. We are excited that on that day, NTU and LAMS International forged a partnership,' he said.

For Paul Gagnon, Senior Deputy Director of CED, 'LAMS heralds the transition from a monolithic one-way transmission model of learning. Its visually compelling design interface for educators facilitates, supports, promotes and enables the 'thinking about', and 'visualising of' subject matter to be presented, as well as the attendant learning activities their students will experience within online learning environments.

"I'm very pleased to announce this partnership. NTU have been excellent supporters of LAMS, particularly through the integration of LAMS with Blackboard. I look forward to working with NTU CED on promotion and adoption of LAMS in Singapore and the region," said James Dalziel, Professor of Learning Technology at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, and inventor of LAMS.

Posted by James Dalziel

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