It has an interface from 2002. To many users this might not be a problem. To the hundreds of students I work with, this is.
It is counter intuitive to use, has poorly designed features and has terrible email, calendar and document integration with any other client. Professor complain, students complain and universities shell out millions.
With the advent of Google/Pearson - This could solve alot of these problems and reduce barriers to adoption. However it will not be revolutionary in terms of enabling education. Such software has been around for a while and better execution will not enable better education.
However if google can integrate the following two factors, we have an education game changer, not just a free substitute
- Live work collaboration with Teachers/Teaching Assistants/Students on google docs.
This will allow students to work on documents and have teachers etc check-in and help them out.
- Google Hangout : A feature that is often left out of Google apps suite. But the potential to video conference with students across the city country and the world is a real game changer (As YCombinator knows)
I am currently building a social eLearning site and I will proactively never call what I'm building as an LMS. LMS' key words are "management" where I'm building a site that will facilitate learning not just manage it.
I agree that the big game changers are live work collaboration and video chat and the standard Google has set is absolutely great. As a recent grad (may, 2011), working on group projects was absolutely essential to successful learning and by being able to allow similar interaction online is a win-win.
We have both those features in the site we're building...and the reason we're not too terrified of others using Google's APIs is that the user will ultimately still need a Google account to use them even on a different site.
If OpenClass is truly open, why make everyone sign up and then also sign up to Google? Not everyone has a Google acct. What about all the countries around the world that would benefit from a true "OpenClass"?
Check us out at www.cloudeas.com...our landing page is still not up yet as we recently started this project but with the amount of traction this article is getting, it's needless to say our landing page will be up today (tonight at the very latest).
We are 5 recent grads that feel the exact same way you have about blackboard---absolutely sick of it and it actually distracted us from learning rather than enhancing it...we decided to build our own: built by students but designed for professors
It has an interface from 2002. To many users this might not be a problem. To the hundreds of students I work with, this is.
It is counter intuitive to use, has poorly designed features and has terrible email, calendar and document integration with any other client. Professor complain, students complain and universities shell out millions.
With the advent of Google/Pearson - This could solve alot of these problems and reduce barriers to adoption. However it will not be revolutionary in terms of enabling education. Such software has been around for a while and better execution will not enable better education.
However if google can integrate the following two factors, we have an education game changer, not just a free substitute
- Live work collaboration with Teachers/Teaching Assistants/Students on google docs.
This will allow students to work on documents and have teachers etc check-in and help them out.
- Google Hangout : A feature that is often left out of Google apps suite. But the potential to video conference with students across the city country and the world is a real game changer (As YCombinator knows)