A new tool called Geogebra has been helping students in graphing their Mathematical equations.  This great tool has been suggested by Edoardo Montefusco and has drawn most people's attention. 

GeoGebra is free and multi-platform dynamic mathematics software for learning and teaching. It is a software for all levels of education that joins arithmetic, geometry, algebra and calculus. It offers multiple representations of objects in its graphics, algebra, and spreadsheet views that are all dynamically linked.

 

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LAMS was recognized for its use of technology to support and enhance learning across all eduation segments and in all regions of the world.  In a not so recent competition held in Barcelona, the IMS Global Learning Consortium announced LAMS as one of the 2009 award winners. 

For more details on the awards, click here.

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The first part of my post featured the Video Recorder in the Authoring environment.  In this post, we will look into Video Recorder in Monitoring Environment.

Summary Screen

The Summary tab for the Video Recorder allows the Monitor to view learner submissions for the activity as they are recorded and uploaded.  Sequence monitors can also record their own messages for students and delete submissions, where necessary.  Monitors cannot rate or comment on video submissions.

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Time Graphs and Charts are among the newest features included in LAMS version 2.3.  Surely, authors/teachers as well as the learners/students will have their share of advantages from these.

In the Monitoring Environment, the graphs show how quickly learners move through the activities in a sequence.  If you're an author or a teacher, you can quickly troubleshoot areas where your students spend a lot of time on particular activities.  You can also easily identify students and learners who are moving at a slower pace than the rest of the class.   The graphs show "live" information as the learners move through the activities in sequence. 

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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.
  

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(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.  

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(photo by LAMS Int.)

21 July 2008, Sydney, Australia & Boston, USA

LAMS International Pty Ltd is pleased to announce that Solution Grove, Inc has become the first USA partner for LAMS. The partnership will see LAMS being actively promoted in United States, both as a standalone solution and as an integrated module with other learning platforms.

Solution Grove provides hosting, support and services for open source learning solutions in the United States. Solution Grove's existing customers include MIT Sloan, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Massachusetts General Hospital and many educational organisations. Solution Grove will actively promote LAMS to the e-learning community in United States including governments, schools and universities.

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(photo by LAMS Foundation)

In an earlier post, I wrote about how to properly integrate Adaptive Curriculum Activity Objects inside Moodle.   After having success with that, the client now needs to have the activity object as part of a LAMS sequence. 

The approach I came up with is to have the URL to the scorm activity created as a resource in the LAMS sequence.  This particular client's LAMS server is in a different domain and port than the Moodle server and it doesn't satisfy the requirements of JavaScript's Same Origin Policy.  This restriction presents a minor issue when launching the resource in a framed LAMS window. The only way to integrate it properly within LAMS is to have it launch in its window.

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(photo by LAMS tool Adaptor)

Ernie over at LAMS has been working on LAMS "Tool Adaptors".  These allow you to use the LMS, e.g. Moodle, .LRN, tools such as Forum, inside of LAMS with far more integration.

 Main page on Tool Adaptors: http://wiki.lamsfoundation.org/display/lams/Tool+Adapters

 The secret to understanding this is to go into the .LRN and Moodle pages and watch the vidoes of the Forums integration.

 But the real power and promise isn't in using Forums, its the concept of being able to integrate tools from the LMS in rich ways with LAMS.  That opens up a wide world of possiblities for creating customized solutions for learning.

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(photo by Moodle Teaching Techniques by William Rice)

I love the preface to William Rice's book "Moodle Teaching Techniques".

Rice says,

"While most [software manuals] do a good job of telling you how to perform tasks, that is, what buttons to push and menus to choose, they often leave the two most important questions unanswered:

What effect will doing this have on your audience's experience?

When would you want to do this?"

We are getting very close to having an integrated Moodle+ELGG+LAMS product and I'm realizing that we will need to write exactly this type of manual and/or training.  As Rice puts it, "we need to combine 'keystroke-and-click' directions with advice on how to make the best use of the solutions and what effects it will have on student's experiences."

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"LAMS creates "digital lesson plans" that can be run online with students, as well as shared among teachers. The LAMS Community allows teachers to share and adapt digital lesson plans, and discuss their experiences of using LAMS." "The LAMS Community is central to our strategy of empowering teachers to transform education using the revolutionary digital lesson planning approach offered by LAMS. Educators can now freely and openly share 'best practice teaching' in a way never seen before in the history of education," said Professor James Dalziel, leader of LAMS. "We chose .LRN for its sophisticated community management functions, complementary feature set, and our shared open source philosophy," Dalziel said.

John Norman, Director of the Cambridge University Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technology praised the LAMS/.LRN collaboration, saying, "Both .LRN and LAMS have set the pace in the development of collaborative/active learning platforms for higher education. This integration and co-operation between the two projects will create a powerful learning environment for students".

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