LAMS Authoring Environment in Firefox |
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| Original author(s) | LAMS Foundation |
| Stable release | 2.3.5 / December 2010 |
| Written in | Java |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Platform | JBoss Application Server |
| Available in | 30 languages [1] |
| Type | Online Education, Learning Design |
| License | GPL v2 |
| Website | http://lamsfoundation.org/ |
LAMS, the Learning Activity Management System, is an open source Learning Design system for designing, managing and delivering online collaborative learning activities. It provides teachers with an intuitive visual authoring environment for creating sequences of learning activities. These activities can include a range of individual tasks, small group work and whole class activities based on both content and collaboration. LAMS is "inspired" by the concept and principles of IMS Learning Design[2].
LAMS is developed in collaboration with LAMS Foundation Ltd, LAMS International Pty Ltd, and the Macquarie E-learning Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE), all based in Sydney, Australia, in affiliation with Macquarie University[3]. LAMS has been developed since 2003.[4]
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The LAMS community website is a global community website for teachers and developers who use the LAMS software. As of April 2011, the LAMS Community had over 6779 members across 80 countries sharing 827 sequences (downloaded/previewed 26689 times) and 6857 discussion forum postings.[5]
LAMS creates "digital lesson plans" that can be run online with students, as well as shared among teachers. The LAMS Community allows teachers to share and adapt digital lesson plans, and discuss their experiences of using LAMS. Teachers, trainers and professors can find digital lessons plans that are freely available to use and adapt, and they can share their own and adaptations.
There is a Greek LAMS community http://greeklamscommunity.ning.com/
You can follow LAMS on Twitter #LAMS.
The LAMS Community has a central repository of learning designs (LAMS Central Repository). These are LAMS sequences shared by teachers and practitioners that use LAMS in their teaching. The subjects of these designs vary widely, from Higher Ed Science subjects to basic k-12.
LAMS in conjunction with the associated LAMS Community won a Gold Award and Best Learning System at the IMS Global Learning Consortium's Learning Impact Awards (LIAs) in May 2009[6].
As of December 2010, the current stable version of LAMS is 2.3.5[7]. Version 2.3.5 is a minor release of the 2.3 development branch. The 2.3 branch introduces 6 new activity tools and considerable speed and performance improvements[8].
LAMS can integrate with other LMS or Virtual Learning Environments such as:
Integration modules for ATutor and Dokeos are under development.[9]
The LAMS Tool Contract is an architecture to allow Tool Interoperability across Learning Management Systems (LMS). It allows tools (web applications) to become "pluggable" in any LMS [10]. The LAMS Tool Contract is the underlying architecture of LAMS and currently tools from other platforms like Moodle and dotLRN can be used within LAMS[11].
These international conferences are academic conferences where papers submitted are peer-reviewed by members of the conference committee. The main topics of this conferences are LAMS and Learning Design and are mainly in English (although there has been one in Spanish). The first LAMS Conference was in Sydney Australia in December, 2006[12]. Usually there are two conferences a year, one in Australia and one in Europe.