The LMS is a big lug, clumsy and slow, but immovable and strong. The LMS killer will not be a LMS; it will be small and nimble, a simple, core system with lots of plugs as you've outlined in the past. And though it feels like we're close to obtaining something like that, it's felt like that to me for several years. I predict the LMS will stick around for quite some time; at the very least until a handful of institutions demonstrate, through experimentation, models of loosely coupled systems that can be quickly, easily, and cheaply adapted by the broadest spectrum of institutions. Even then the conservatism and perceived reliability of the LMS will help it hold its ground, and we therefore can't write off the LMS; indeed, I still feel compelled to work with the LMS as much as we can, if only for the sake of the learners who will inevitably file through it.

I do think that, although GW doesn't replace an LMS completely, it does provide replacements for key items of functionality in an LMS – particularly around synchronous and asynchronous communication and group collaboration spaces.

You make the point about content and I agree the the current LMS is focussed on content delivery but it also seems that more and more content is becoming available outside of the LMS and, indeed, the university. Systems will arise that allow open links to that content at which point, when combined with things like GW we may have a totally open LMS built by and curated by users.

What will remain for the University will be the crticial task of managing assessment in a rigorous and consistent way (one of the great things about your loosely couple gradebook).

So, in summary, GW certainly isn’t an LMS replacement but combined with other ways of delivering content and changing attitudes to the control of content it will probably contribute to the decline of the LMS as a key educational technology platform.

But we should still provide the best aspects of the CMS for faculty members and their students (particularly for those who teach and take high-enrollment classes). These features include things like lightweight content management (which, as you note, is one of the most valuable features of the CMS), SIS integration, and a secure online assessment communication and feedback tool (aka, a gradebook).

And, yes, it is oddly appropriate to call a 10-15 year old technology a “dinosaur.”

Will young faculty and graduate student instructors embrace Wave and other technologies as a replacement? I think so. I hate using Blackboard and other CMSs. And when I do use them, I never use the gradebook feature. I use them to make documents and materials available to students, and to facilitate dialogue among class members. Wave and other technologies are much better for those purposes.

It's not so much a matter of technology changing the way we teach, so much as technology trying to catch up with new ways of teaching. The CMS seems uninterested (or unable) to adapt to current pedagogical trends. The CMS persists only because old faculty members (and new faculty members who teach how they were taught by old faculty members) continue to do things the same way.

(and yes, I see the irony of calling CMS a dinosaur).

Perhaps like… this!

http://zope.cetis.ac.uk/members/scott/blogview?...

(also see: http://CEUR-WS.org/Vol-506/wilson.pdf)