The Xplanation

Welcome to this week’s Biweekly Research Update. If you want more context for this research, take a look at our Education and Technology Trends for 2011. You may also be interested in our Weekly Research Index, or you can follow our live, daily research on our Current News page.

(Click here to see a simple listing of today’s suggested reading)

Since news came out that Providence Equity planned to acquire BlackBoard, a number of articles and posts have been written about BlackBoard the future of the LMS. George Siemens has questioned BlackBoard’s actual commitment (present and future) to learning. Campus Technology has this interview with several industry leaders, which explores possible futures for the LMS platform.

Some of the “shifts” in the LMS world are related to general evolutions in technology and society. The move toward mobile applications, social networking, and open architectures has certainly challenged the traditional LMS paradigm, and seems to favor upstart platforms like Instructure that have been designed from the ground up with these changes in mind (Auburn University just announced they are moving from Vista to Instructure Canvas). Meanwhile, alternative platforms like Desire2Learn are Desire2Learn Learning Suite Gaining Google+ Integration | Campus Technologydoing their best to keep up by integrating with social networking solutions such as Facebook and Google+. The potential problem with such bolt-ons, however, os that social media in learning and social learning aren’t really the same thing.

With regards to BlackBoard’s future, I think Michael Feldstein gets it right when he says that Providence Equity will either treat the acquisition with the mentality of a landlord or a house flipper. Looking beyond BlackBoard, I think Michael’s assessment points to a series of divergent possibilities for the LMS industry in the coming 24 months.

Here are the tension points I see that will drive a market shakeup and determine product evolutions.

• Closed or Open — Traditional LMS platform are, by definition, closed architectures. They are designed around the dual concepts of an institutions and courses, and are structured maintain these as isolated containers within a walled garden. This is because traditional LMS platforms are, essentially, an identical technology twin to the brick-and-mortar university. While LMS platform have remained relatively unchanged int heir architecture since 1999, the rest of the Web and application world has adopted a more open architecture model. This is rendering the traditional LMS platform design obsolete and, more important, we are seeing apparent incompatibilities between the two design philosophies.
• Centripetal or Centrifugal Learning Models — In addition to being closed, the learning model on which traditional LMS platforms were modeled is also centripetal — it assumes that learning takes place by bringing learners to a central location where they can access knowledge. The Web, and I would argue learning, operates on the notion that knowledge and information acquisition is the result of centrifugal forces, a “going or sending out.” Again, the two are somewhat incompatible, particularly in terms of product design and architecture.
• Instructor/Student or Institution — Auburn University made clear in its decision to adopt Instructure that they wanted to move away from a complex platform model to one that championed simplicity and the basic needs of instructors and students. The tension here is between an institutional focus that incorporates an inordinate amount of functionality to support integrated institutional information needs versus a basic teaching tool designed to savetime for instructors and produce valuable learning for instructors. You might be able to do both in the same application but there will always be a center of gravity that favors one over the other. The current general technology trend is to focus on simplicity and end users.
• Portal or Mobile — The traditional LMS platform is designed around the concept of a portal, reminiscent of the old Yahoo and AOL empires. Today, the Web is about distributed and mobile models. It is unclear how well, if at all, traditional LMS platforms can adapt to this future.

Keep Your Eye on Tablets

In general technology news this week, the Wall Street Journal confirmed that Amazon will indeed release a tablet device this fall. This is good news for the Android tablet market and should also translate into increased tablet ownership among the 18-35 demographic.

Amazon’s announcement is not bad news for Apple, however. More competition and more tablet options simply mean a bigger market to dominate for the Cupertino company. And speaking of domination, Apple has been doing just that in the overall PC market. It is the only company registering consistent growth, and sold 11 percent of all US computers last quarter. “Apple nabbed nearly 11 percent market share in the US during the second quarter of 2011, even as overall shipments were down year over year. Worldwide, shipments were up slightly but well below the expected growth. Acer continues its recent downward spiral as netbook demand has dropped, mainly to the benefit of Dell and Lenovo.”

On the Higher Education front, it appears that Apple’s back-to-school promo clobbering Microsoft’s efforts.

Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry issued a note to investors earlier this week pointing out that education sales of Apple’s Macs have been significantly outselling Windows PCs. The firm’s research indicated that “80% of incoming students are buying Apple Computers vs. Windows Computers.”

Apple this year is offering education customers a $100 iTunes store credit with the purchase of a qualifying Mac. The deal was originally thought to be less attractive than the promotion from recent years, but, based on the recent statistics, interest in this year’s promotion has not suffered as a result of the change.

Suggested Reading

Auburn U Moves to Open Source Canvas LMS | Campus Technology

The Blackboard Acquisition: Two Views | e-Literate

Desire2Learn Learning Suite Gaining Google+ Integration | Campus Technology

The Learning Generalist: Social Media in Learning and Social Learning are just not the same thing

elearnspace › What am I not seeing?

Quo Vadis, LMS? Trends, Predictions, Commentary | Campus Technology

Amazon Plans iPad Rival | WSJ.com

Apple sells 11 percent of all US computers last quarter, takes third place

AppleInsider | Apple’s back-to-school promo clobbering Microsoft’s efforts