Memories

This weeks lesson on LMS and LCMS brings back memories of my previous career as an instructional designer in the corporate world. It is different viewing learning management systems and content management systems from an academic perspective in contrast to praxis.
As an instructional designer and training analyst I was intimately involved with content management systems (not so much learning management systems, that was the professional development group). To use the analogy from Greenberg (2002), you might say I created the jelly beans and bags of jelly beans that involved employee job training and certification. At that company the LMS supported learning events that involved employee career development and the LCMS was used more for job development and training events. Content from the LCMS was not associated with the content on the LMS although there was some over lap. As manager of the eLearning group I remember the company initiative to integrate the LMS and LCMS platforms…endless meetings with vendors (SAP, PeopleSoft, et al). That’s where the discussions on reusable objects began to take place and I first heard the term SCORM compliance standards. Anyway, my impression of the difference is quite distinct. LMS manages learning events and LCMS manages the content to support those learning events. A university is like a large integrated LMS/LCMS that consists of a blended learning environment. Greenberg (2002) states that an LMS should offer a curriculum smorgasbord that mixes classroom and virtual courses easily. Combined, these features enable prescriptive and personalized training. A student can enroll with a major focus or specific curriculum or just take a few courses. The curriculum department and department heads decide on the courses/content that make up the curriculum.

From a hotel room in Montgomery Alabama.