In my previous post, I wrote about some of the new improvements in this latest, soon-to-be-released version of LAMS.  In this post, we get to know more.

LAMS v2.3 will include 5 new tools:

• Video Audio Recording. LAMS Video Recorder Tool lets authors/teachers record their instructions for the learners or students. These video recordings can be embedded into their sequence.
  
  The Video Recorder, which comes as a separate activity, lets learners or students upload their own videos, too.  Students may also leave comments and rate other learners/students recordings.  

  The Video Audio Recording tool also comes with a FCKEditor plugin, which lets teachers/authors record a videos and insert these videos into any activitiy of their liking.
  
  Teachers and students may also export all recording on Export Portfolio.
  

  
  

  
  For more iniformation about the Video Audio Recorder, see this post.

• Pixlr Tool.  Pixlr, a powerful online image editor based on Flash, can be included as a LAMS activity.  The Pixlr editor includes image creation and editing features.  Its interface is similar to that of Paint, Photoshop, GIMP, or any advanced image editor.  Thus, anyone who is familiar with the mentioned editors will find it easy to user Pixlr.

• Image Gallery Tool lets teachers/authors and learners/students upload images or a series of images to LAMS.  This tool also lets them review and rate the images.

• New Assessment Tool with Gradebook Integration.  This new assessment tool is heavily based on Moodle's Quiz tool.  This tool allows teachers to create questions that will measure the skills or knowledge of the students.  Moreover, this tool will let teachers view the marks achieved by each of the students.  Also, teachers are able to modify or change these marks that a student obtained manually.  In addition, teachers are also able to create assessments and then later on add questions to these assessments.

• Mindmap Tool, which allows teachers to set up a topic or topics so that learners or students can brainstorm.  This tool can either be Individual, where each student in the lesson brainstorm about the proposed teacher topics on his/her own, or Collaboratively, where all students in the lesson can participate in the same brainstorm.
  
  This tool is based on Flash, thus, students can take advantage of the funky interactive interface.