OAT Discussion Article Review
Thursday October 22, 2008
Tara N. McCoy
Article Review
Bryan Alexander’s Deepening the Chasm: Web 2.0, Gaming, and Course Management Systems (CMS) offers different ways for course management systems to connect with web 2.0 and gaming. Alexander, Director of Emerging Technologies for the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE http://www.nitle.org/), addresses how course management systems can learn strategically and conceptually from Web 2.0 and gaming. The article recognizes the advances that have taken place in the digital world as well as the gaps that have surfaced in academia as a result of it not being prepared to think outside of the box. The article explains how academia has struggled with emerging technologies like gaming to stimulate student learning and enhance pedagogical substance. Alexander says that “games have emerged as learning objects in themselves, pedagogically aimed content containers (Prensky 2001, Shaffer 2007).” He goes on to illustrate how educators have used games in the past (i.e., off the shelf games) but that most educators in higher education lack the ingenuity to create their own games for their course. However, Alexander does provide examples of educators who have innovated gaming by modifying off-the-shelf games for pedagogical applications (e.g., Civilization; MIT’s Revolution, or the Arden project; see also the Arden’s project lead’s self-criticism, Alexander, 2008).
In terms of course management systems, Alexander suggests that the leading course management company within higher education, Blackboard, has done nothing with gaming. Alexander goes on to demonstrate how Blackboard’s architecture hinders the attributes of web 2.0 (e.g., it has a restrictive platform that prevents social networking and the integration of microcontent – the essence of web 2.0). Alexander ends the article by identifying how the chasm can be crossed. For example, he suggest that course management systems should not limit the open web and prevent linking or a student from adding relevant links or embedded media or microcontent.
References
Alexander, B. (2008) “Deepening the Chasm: Web 2.0, Gaming, and Course Management Systems (June 2008). Retrieved October 2008 from http://jolt.merlot.org/vol4no2/alexander0608.htm