Interesting news on the open-source betrothal front with Moodle (usp = high student centredness) and LAMS (usp = high teacher design) deciding to live together and perhaps even becoming more integrated if things work out. The concept here appears to be that Moodle provides the course management whilst LAMS provides its activity-based digital lesson planning capabilities (Macromedia Flash essential). The joint Moodle LAMS press release (PDF) is, as we would expect, pretty upbeat with this first pass at integration achieving single login (so only one user Id and password will be necessary) and the inclusion of LAMS structured learning activity sequences to Moodle course pages, i.e. a Moodle activity could now be a whole sequence of LAMS activities. Alternatively, the LAMS and Moodle Integration - Walkthrough indicates that it will also be possible for a LAMS activity sequence to incorporate a Moodle activity within its structure.
We won't know until we actually see the fruits of the integration, but it seems to me that it's going to be important here that the cognitive load on both students and course authors due to confusion over what activity comes from where (or belongs to where) doesn't become too much.
Moodle already has the concept of learning activities, but so does LAMS. It's going to be pretty interesting, therefore, to see what the impact of LAMS integration within Moodle is going to have upon Moodle activities and development ethos. For example, what will Moodle come to be perceived as? Primarily, a teacher oriented system? Primarily, a learner oriented system?
Despite these reservations I can certainly see the sense of the integration. LAMS activities need to link to functional elements and having direct access to Moodle's assets makes some sense. For example, if a LAMS activity requires to discuss a topic or concept then Moodle's discussion forums can be called into play instead of depending on functionality external to Moodle. The richer Moodle functionality becomes the richer LAMS becomes. Of course, in this scenario, LAMS could become so dependent upon Moodle that it ceases to have an indepndent life outside of this platform:)
Nothing ventured, nothing gained and so I welcome this initiative. It's going to provide one interesting case study and the synergies may well outweigh any disadvantages.
As the LAMS Foundation's FAQs indicate LAMS is an IMS Learning Design 'influenced tool' rather than a reference implementation of this most challenging of the IMS specifications although an export capability for the formal IMS LD specification is promised.
