Managed Learning Environments

What is an MLE?

A managed learning environment (MLE) is a collection of software tools and digital content that support learning. From one perspective it comprises two hubs: the Student Management System (SMS) that controls the administration and management of student and staff information; and the Learning Management System (LMS) that controls much of the curriculum and pedagogical modules.

Over time, many other services and applications will interact with one of the hubs. Such modules can include: authoring and publishing, collaboration, digital repositories, e-portfolios, social networking, content and library management systems etc. Some of these are available as Web 2.0 tools.

Why is the Ministry involved in MLE?

The Ministry aims to direct and promote the development and use of MLE in New Zealand schools. The Ministry’s e-Learning team produced guidelines on the use and selection of Online Learning Environments in 2005 and the current initiative, run by the SMS Services team, builds on the work the e-Learning team started. Sector interest in online learning is very high both in New Zealand and overseas and the Ministry has acted to ensure schools have appropriate advice and a reasonable selection of products delivering services to meet the changing educational needs of today’s students.

Less than 20% of schools currently have and use an LMS (in contrast, over 95% of schools have and use an SMS). However the interest in LMS and associated tools is high and growing. The Ministry believes that early intervention, providing guidance and direction to schools and vendors, before too many schools have made decisions and invested, is preferable to waiting any longer. The Ministry is intervening before schools find themselves in the same situation as with SMS - nearly 40 SMS were in use across almost 2000 schools, and there had been questions and complaints from schools about the quality and reliability of some SMS software and vendor support.

Historically, an LMS has been regarded as a single, all encompassing solution, whereas many commentators now believe that a mix of tools is a stronger, more stable approach to meet school needs - a view supported within New Zealand and internationally. The largest challenge in this ‘mash-up’ (which we refer to as an MLE) approach is interoperability - the way the parts interact and play together. The Ministry can add value in this area by providing direction and encouragement to vendors to work together to make their products interoperable.

Also, schools are not currently able to share resources developed in their own LMS unless the second school uses the same one. In some cases, even this is not possible. The movement of relevant educational material is difficult or time consuming, and we want this to change. Currently:

• a student or teacher cannot take their work with them and schools cannot exchange content. It remains locked in the first (proprietary) system; and
• if a new module is introduced from another provider, there is no guarantee it will be able to exchange data with your existing modules – in fact it probably won’t.