i’ve been looking at a different way to use blogs in the elearning environment and i’ve found that it’s not that difficult to tie the 2 together.

so i wrote a simple php page and put in in the in the wp app dir. it gets some blogApp.user info and uses it to build a launch request to my LMS. it’s a little like deep linking, but in this case the LMS user authentication is automatic.

i can also do the same thing the other way around;
i build a SCO and imported it into the LMS, it’s an html page that uses the SCORM api to get learner info.
it builds a post request that is sent to a php page on wordpress that creates the wp user and/or logs them in.

next i’m going to play with passing bit’s of data back to the lms so that actual work from the blog can be captured/measured.

for now, i’ve got:
launch a course from the blog
go to the blog from the LMS

it opens things up for some interesting applications.

A site that caters to such setups, like http://edublogs.org would probably be a much better choice.

Also considering that David Wiley is talking about custom themes and plugins, he may not be aware of what wp.com can do as those things are not available over at wp.com unless you buy into their VIP program which costs hundreds of dollars a month.

I use TurnItIn.com to receive and return assignments, and to maintain the gradebook. TurnItIn has an excellent authentication system, and I would rather not keep student data on my own web server.

However, I woulnd’t reject something just because it didn’t track; I’d try to ensure that I had another way of monitoring students. (assuming it’s an online only course). I also don’t see tracking as the only reason to use tracking … I’d see an LMS as a way of linking together several resources. Perhaps not in the most pedagogically sound way, but I strongly believe that the way something is used is far more important than the tool in most cases. A face to face teacher can teach the best class in the world under a tree with a stick to draw in the sand. She can teach a terrible class in a top of the range classroom equipped with every gadget under the sun. Just the same with online environments.

Zachary mentions that he’s (or she’s) “training” students. I wonder if those of us who see ourselves as “educators”, rather than “trainers”, have a different view. Or, perhaps the difference that I see between “training” and “education” is a UK based difference, one that’s not so defined in the US.