Is SCORM Dead?

About a week ago I tweeted:

from what i’m reading between the lines, #SCORM is dead to the ADL. they’re moving on. interesting timing considering #TAACCCT

I had no idea how much hand-wringing and consternation my off-handed comment would cause. It apparently caused (directly or indirectly) some heated discussions about SCORM being dead.

The problem is, I never said “SCORM is dead.” I said “SCORM is dead to the ADL.” Big difference.

Eolas is at it again

This week — a year and a half after settling with Microsoft — Eolas has gone on the attack again, filing suit against “Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Argosy Publishing (publisher of The Visible Body), Blockbuster, Citigroup, eBay, Frito-Lay, GoDaddy, J. C. Penney, JPMorgan Chase, ‘transactional’ adult entertainment provider New Frontier Media, Office Depot, Perot Systems, Playboy Enterprises, Rent-a-Center, Staples, Sun Microsystems, Texas Instruments, Yahoo, and YouTube.”

Constructive criticism for the new whitehouse.gov

The new whitehouse.gov site has received a lot of press since its unveiling a few days ago. Many have rightly given it kudos for bringing a modern sense of design and “Web 2.0”-style social practices to the White House. I agree that the new site is a big improvement, but upon looking under the hood, there are a number of things I’d have done differently. Here’s a quick-hit list (not comprehensive at all)…

Blackboard: Spoke too soon?

Quote: The USPTO has NOT invalidated the Blackboard patent. Instead the USPTO is proposing to invalidate the patent and has issued some preliminary documents for review and comment. At the end of the day the USPTO still might uphold the patent as valid.

The IMS Global Learning Consortium needs to loosen up!

I looked up the QTI specs on the IMS site and couldn’t believe the boldfaced notice I saw on the page: “HTML documents may be viewed online, but may not be printed without permission” (emphasis added).

Can you believe that? IMS is in the business of creating standards they want the whole world to use. These standards should be open, easily accessible and free from licensing constraints. Why on earth do they want to put silly notices like this on their site?

LMSs are just websites… no, really!

Folks, it’s simple — if you have to paste a “this site works best with XXX browser” message on your site, whether it’s an LMS, an online course, or just a website for your mom’s knitting club, you’re doing something wrong. Do us a favor and stop it.