LAMS Foundation

 General Technical questions about LAMS

 General Technical questions about LAMS

What's LAMS written on?

LAMS is a web application written on JAVA, uses JBOSS as application server and MySQL as the backend database. Although LAMS is a web application, the Authoring, Monitor and some parts of the Learner interfaces use Flash.

Why JAVA?

Our technical requirements when development commenced (~2002) made JAVA the development choice. Also the team expertise was strong on JAVA so it was the best option.
We usually get asked why we didn't developed LAMS on PHP or another scripting language, but we are quite comfortable with JAVA because we can do all we need (so far) with it.
Now, can LAMS be written in PHP? Possibly.

Why MySQL?

At the time when development started (back in ~2002), MySQL was the only open-source database that ran in all platforms we wanted LAMS to be used on. Therefore it was the selected choice. Other databases can be configured for use with LAMS 2.2

Why Flash?

Flash provides a very rich interface that allows a person with very low computer skills to visually 'do things' with a web application.
We wanted LAMS to be really simple to use. Teachers with almost no computer skills should be able to use it. Therefore we decided to use Flash.
Can the LAMS Flash interface be written in JavaScript/AJAX/etc? Possibly, but we are quite happy with how it works now.

You use JBOSS as Application Server. Can I use other JAVA application servers instead?

We would like to make our development application server independent as much as we can.
However, there are part of LAMS that heavily rely or depend on the application server to handle certain tasks (authentication/authorization for instance).
LAMS v2 can be adapted to run on other Java Application servers.

 Getting Started

 Getting Started

So, in a few words, what is LAMS?

LAMS ('Learning Activity Management System') is an Australian invention that has become the world's leading software for creating and running digital lesson plans. Its unique drag-and-drop interface transforms lesson planning into a simple, visual experience.
The system is being used in all forms of education: K-12 schools, vocational training, higher education, adult/community learning and corporate training. The greatest interest in LAMS to date has been in K-12 schools and universities, followed by vocational training.
Teachers use LAMS to design a sequence of learning activities for students that includes content (Learning Objects) and collaborative tasks. LAMS then 'runs' the sequence of tasks for students, and provides teachers with a monitoring environment to track student progress.
Teachers can design and run a lesson plan in under 10 minutes using LAMS. The lesson plans can also be shared, so that other teachers can use (and adapt) LAMS sequences.

LAMS is successful in a variety of educational settings, eg, in K-12 it can be used for:

• live collaborative activities in a computer lab at school,
• online homework activities completed at home or in the library,
• individual instruction or small group work in classrooms with few computers,
• dynamic presentations in conjunction with an interactive whiteboard,
• personalised learning and presenting content (such as TLF Learning Objects), and
• collaboration across several schools, even schools in different countries.

Rather than being sold as proprietary software, LAMS is being released as freely available 'open source software' (GPL License) for the public good of education by the non-profit LAMS Foundation (backed by Macquarie University). A separate commercial services company (LAMS International Pty Ltd) offers optional fee-based technical support, training, etc.
Since an image can say more than a thousand words, how about a Video on LAMS:

• LAMS Introduction Video
  A brief introduction to the fundamentals of LAMS.

 Who is using LAMS?

 Who is using LAMS?

For an up-to-date listing of the institutions and organisations currently using LAMS, click here.

 So LAMS is great, but what are its benefits?

 So LAMS is great, but what are its benefits?

LAMS has received enthusiastic endorsement from e-learning experts around the world. For example, Professor Diana Laurillard (Director, E-learning Strategy Unit, UK DfES) has stated that she sees the potential for LAMS to be in many schools. Formal independent evaluations of LAMS are being conducted by JISC and BECTA (UK).

Research on LAMS demonstrates that it is a transformational technology for the education sector with many types of benefits for teachers, students, parents and administrators, eg:

• Low achieving boys: In a key UK trial, LAMS was highly successful in a secondary boys school with some low achieving students. Boys were particularly enthusiastic about the way LAMS brought familiar collaborative technologies into the classroom. Teachers were enthusiastic about the way LAMS increased discussion and participation, reduced workloads (through faster preparation, and sharing of designs) and increased achievement levels. A survey showed that while only 16% of boys were comfortable answering teacher questions in a typical classroom setting, 83% of the same boys were comfortable answering in LAMS. A four minute video about LAMS in this school is available at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/kemnal.wmv
• Indigenous higher education students: Use of LAMS at Macquarie University within the Indigenous Community Management Program has led to high levels of student engagement with subject matter and technology. Students commented that the collaboration and discussion fostered by LAMS was felt to be particularly appropriate to their learning styles, unlike other e-learning courses elsewhere with a heavy emphasis on content, or large lecture theatres with little interaction. Some students found using LAMS so transformational that they wish to change their career to education, using tools like LAMS.
• High ability humanities students: At a Sydney private girls school, LAMS has been used to extend the learning experience of gifted and talented students in English through online collaboration tasks. Activities have run over several weeks including tasks both within school classes and out-of-class tasks (done at home or in the library).
• Vocational training in motor mechanics: In a UK vocational training college, online LAMS tasks have been used to complement small group face-to-face teaching in motor mechanics.
• Teacher training: LAMS is being used in the UK and Australia for university teacher training courses. Trainee teachers use LAMS within their course to assist their own learning, and then develop LAMS sequences for use in schools with their K-12 students.

 More examples of LAMS in action...

 More examples of LAMS in action...

Advanced bioinformatics: A UK university is using LAMS for advanced courses in bioinformatics. Students use LAMS to search and analyse complex gene databases, and then collaborate on the interpretation of outcomes.

School science using live data from the internet: Secondary school science teachers are teaching weather topics using LAMS by getting students to use websites with live weather data, combined with small group discussion and interpretation of this data in LAMS.

Standardising curriculum: LAMS provides a foundation for standardising curriculum across different groups of teachers/disciplines. At one university, LAMS has been used to standardise the teaching of introductory statistics across a range of disciplines (psychology, engineering, medicine, sociology). LAMS can also be used to achieve consistency by mapping school curriculums between different states or countries by providing a “pedagogical meta-model”.

Portfolio records of activities: LAMS allows students to capture a rich record of their online activities and store these in a portfolio. This provides the potential for later reflection on past activities across a lifetime of learning, as well as automated reporting of activities and outcomes to parents, administrators and government agencies.

Sharing of good practice: Once a teacher designs a digital lesson plan in LAMS, this can be shared with other teachers, who can also use it, or adapt it to their own context. This unique feature of LAMS allows teachers to collaborate with each other via a community website to share libraries of good practice digital lesson plans. These teachers can later report on experiences of using shared sequences with their students. This feature also provides the opportunity for Government Educational Departments to centrally provide quality-assured digital lesson plans according to curriculum goals and based on best practice methods.

National Delivery Platform for Learning Objects and activities: LAMS could provide a national, open, flexible delivery system for e-learning activities and content. It could also manage Learning Object distribution and delivery. The recent AFUET report from DEST recommends exploring the use of LAMS for this purpose (Part B, p26/27).

 OK, How do I get started with LAMS?

 OK, How do I get started with LAMS?

LAMS is slightly different from other e-learning tools we've tried, so it might require a brief introduction to understand how it works. It's really quite simple.

The Documentation Wiki (link) is the best introduction. You can read about the different environments in the LAMS software, view information about the individual Activities or Tools in LAMS, and view animations and screencasts explaining how best to use them.

We encourage you to use the LAMS Community as much as you can as there are a lot of people in your same situation that can help you getting started. The Getting Started Community is all about this!

Can't find your answer there, please post a message in the Tech Forums.

If you would like to have a case study on how you use LAMS, let us know.

 Authoring and Monitoring

 Authoring and Monitoring

My students can log in to LAMS, but cannot see their sequence

This could be because:

• The students are in the LAMS database, but the author has not added students to the specific 'class' for that sequence;
• The author has not activated the sequence via the monitoring interface; or
• the sequence has been archived by the author.

A colleague has sent me a learning design created in LAMS. How do I copy and open it?

In the author view, choose 'File' from the top menu bar.

• Select 'Import sequence'. At the next dialogue box click on 'browse' and find the file on your computer.
• Click 'Import' and the file will automatically open in the LAMS authoring space.
• Click on the 'Save' icon in the top menu bar, and the sequence will be saved in your private folder.

Is there a limit to the size of the files that can be attached to the Shared Resources tool?

Yes, files are limited to 10MB for authors and 1 MB for learners.

Can I see how my students are progressing through the sequence?

Yes. By using the monitoring function you can see who has entered the sequence, how far they have progressed and the contributions they have made to online discussions, live chat sessions, or files contributed through the Shared Resources tool.

Can I edit a sequence once it has been created?

Yes, editing is very simple in LAMS, and no knowledge of HTML is required. A simple form-based interface is used. It requires text only entry. From the author interface, the teacher double clicks on the tool to be edited, opens a form with a number of fields and from there can quickly change content, student instructions and files or URLS. Changing the order of activities is a matter of dragging and dropping the transition arrows. The content cannot be changed once a sequence has been assigned students. To edit a sequence with students, you can copy the sequence and edit the content in the copy to make a revised sequence, and then use it.

 Learner's view

 Learner's view

I've logged in, but I can't see any activities.

You may not have the correct operating system, browser or Flash installed. Before running LAMS, check the system requirements. You will also need to disable pop up blockers.

I'm in the forum and I can't see the reply button. Why is that?

The author has locked the forum so you can't return after you have checked the 'finish' button.

What is the 'notebook' used for on the left-hand side of my screen?

You can either type text or copy and paste text into your notebook. When you click 'save', the information disappears. You need to click on 'view all' and you can see all of your entries. While your entries are saved in 'notebook' form, they are only viewable to you. If you save your entries as 'journal' then your teacher can also see that particular entry.