From someone who can remember how the Sinclair ZX81 was going to change
the world.
I guess what a VLE can do is bring together a range of tools to support
learning via the Internet/Intranet.
I got very excited by the promise of the learndirect VLE a few years
back but the promise turned to disappointment as a great opportunity
became reduced to delivering simple instruction in basic IT often in the
absence of any trained teachers.
Good products like Moodle can take on a life of their own but will only
ever be part of the answer. Yes Moodle can do a great variety of things
but it's use will always be limited by the choices of the teacher using
it (or the organisation that's controlling it).
Great free web-based opportunities to support students have been around
for years. There were great examples in my college of the free resource,
Smartgroups, being used as a repository and to stimulate student
discussions and peer group support.
Microsoft Sharepoint seems to offer a way of bringing together tools to
support learning like content repositories and a range of communication
tools. In this scenario a so-called VLE (or maybe VLE's) just gets
tucked into the range of tools under the Sharepoint umbrella.
Furthermore the whole caboodle talks to student information systems and,
hey presto, you have an MLE. If only it was this easy.
Perhaps we need to look forward to a marriage of Open Source and
Microsoft software or will it be a battle between Moodle and BlackCT? I
hope not.
Are we concerned with profit, personal or financial or are we concerned
with supporting students in best ways possible in the 21st century
irrespective of the technlogy that we might have avaialble?
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