(photo by LAMS International)

LAMS v2.3 was initially planned to be released at the start of July.  Good news is the latest version of LAMS is aimed to be released in May with a whole bunch of massive improvements, new features, and fixes. 

Teachers and students will definitely get their share of advantages from the new features that make this latest version so much better than the earlier ones.

Let's look at some of the cool stuff in this new version:

• With its increased performance, users will not have to wait long.  LAMS v2.3 will boot 75% faster and run 375% faster compared to the previous versions.  To add to that, LAMS v2.3 will use only a quarter of RAM memory.

• With the New and Simplified Adding Lesson Wizard, teachers can create a lesson in just 3 clicks.
  
  
  

• Through the Activity Planner, teachers are guided through the design process, adding their own content to educationally sound learning activities.  Teachers are able to find the right sequence they need through the help of the Wizard.  The Activity/Pedagogical Planner gives teachers a cut-down and simplified version of authoring, presenting most of the content for all the activities that are part of the sequence in just one page through the help of the editor.
  
  LAMS Activity Planner produces runnable learning activities that students can readily use.
  
  Click here to see more of the Activity Planner in action. (source: LAMS Foundation).  You may also want to see more blogging about the Activity Planner in this post.

• Integration with the LAMS Community.  The new version allows the import of sequences directly into LAMS Author from the LAMS Community.  Teachers/authors get to share their best sequences with everyone in the LAMS Community.

• Public shared folder gives authors a chance to share their designs with each other.

• Teachers and learners are able to communicate while they are working on a LAMS lesson through the Instant Messaging.
  
  
  
  
  
• A simple yet fully functional Gradebook lets teachers see all the marks that the students get in their lessons.

• Export Activity.  Activity results can be exported to other Gradebooks such as Moodle, Sakai, .LRN and other integrations.

• Students can access support activities at any given time, for additional reference.  These support activities are part of the learning design, but not necessarily part of the sequence of activities.
  
  
  
  

• Upgrade to fastest HTML online editor.  LAMS v2.3 will use FCK Editor version 2.6.4.  The updates include increases in speed and better rendering of content as well as as in-built media player.

• Graphs and charts to monitor learner's time in activities.  In the Monitoring Environment, graphs show how quickly learners move through the sequence of activities.  These graphs make it easy for authors to troubleshoot areas where learners spend a lot of time on particular activities.  It is also easy to identify the learners who are moving at a slow pace than the rest of the class. 
  
  The graphs and charts show "live" information and will give precise information about the amount of time students are spending in a lesson.
  
  
  
  
  
  

In my next post, find out about the 5 new tools in LAMS v2.3.  

Is LAMS new to you?  Do you want to know more about the wonders of LAMS?  Perhaps, an introduction to LAMS  and a demo will help.