Tag: cms

Confused and didn’t know it

I pay attention to what is available in the way of CMSs and operate several open source CMSs just for the experience. I have been reading about a new CMS (SilverStrip) and considered setting up an implementation until I realized that I have no server running PHP5.

Somewhere in the middle of reading and thinking about CMSs I realized I have been talking about and experimenting with two kinds of systems without realizing CMS does not always mean CMS.

There are Course Management Systems such as Blackboard (or Moodle).

There are Content Management Systems such as Drupal or SilverStrip.

Now that I realize a CMS is not a CMS I may suffer from a sense of confusion. What if we changed course management system to class management system? I guess that wouldn’t solve my new found problem. Sometimes it is simply better not to know.

Maybe this personal insight into cognitive behavior seems intriguing to no one but me. I think it is one of those experiences that makes you go – “hmm”. Context must be everything.

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NUVVO – Teaching/Learning Portal

During the flight to my recent research conference, I was listening to a randomly selected educational podcast and encountered a description of NUVVO. I made a note to investigate this product when I returned home and had some time. Here is my comment.

I would describe Nuvvo as a CMS (course management system). At the low end, Nuvvo is a free service allowing anyone (a stated goal is to “bring out the teacher in all of us”) to build an online course and offer it to “learners.” The free version limits course authors to 25 MB of content. The free version also contains advertisements. If you wish to explore the capabilities of this service, there is a five minute screencast that explains core features.

I think this is a significant and interesting development. It is probably too early to speculate about broad topics such as what the opportunity to offer a free or inexpensive educational content management service might mean. Will ventures such as this challenge the place of traditional educational institutions in serving nondegree seeking students? Will such services challenges companies such as lynda.com or atomiclearning.com that provide specialized training? Will educators in K-12 settings use such products to extend classroom experiences?

Exposure to this service reminded me of the efforts of some of my University of North Dakota colleagues to develop a CMS product (HTMLeZ). University ventures have contributed much to the field of technology (e.g., the original Mosaic browser), but I wonder if such projects should be approached with a commercial focus. Sometimes a commercial opportunity emerges, but I think this cannot be the reason research and development projects are undertaken. Alternatives to the high end commercial products (e.g., Blackboard) are needed, but it is unclear how such alternatives will emerge. Will new ideas come from small commercial startups, from open source initiatives (e.g., Moodle), or from companies such as Nuvvo.

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