Open for Learning: The CMS and the Open Learning Network

Here is an excellent article by Jon Mott and David Wiley that argues that learning management systems and their underlying educational model hinder substantial teaching and learning innovation in higher education.

"As currently designed and implemented, not only does the CMS fail to help learners realize their full potential while engaged in formal learning, but it also fails to prepare them to be effective learners throughout their working lives. We contend that the CMS falls short in three important ways. First, the CMS imposes, or at least reinforces, artificial time constraints on learning and learning continuity. It does this by perpetuating the Industrial Era-inspired, assembly line notion that the semester-bound course is the naturally appropriate unit of instruction (Reigeluth, 1999). This student throughput-focused model perpetuates the increasingly false notion that career preparation and learning occur during a discrete, uninterrupted, several-year-long period immediately following high school. Second, while the job marketplace increasingly puts responsibility for learning and authentic, job-related skill acquisition and refinement on the individual, the CMS continues to privilege the instructor as the locus of energy and action in the learning process. The CMS does not afford learners the opportunity to contribute to the learning process in significant ways or to self-organize around learning topics, conversations, or content. Finally, the CMS continues to artificially situate instruction and learning inside walled gardens that are disconnected from the rich and vibrant networks of learners and content in the wider world." - Jon Mott, David Wiley