Goodbye LMS?

I had seen this paper (Social software: E-learning beyond learning management systems) before, but Jay Cross's take on the implications of the paper in LMS, we hardly knew ye is interesting:

LMS create a walled garden in an era when walls are falling down. Why not use
the real internet and real internet technology rather than some hokey
oversimplification? Furthermore, how can you manage serendipitous learning that
is inherently unmanageable?

I get the feeling that Jay and I are responding to what is happening out in the world of corporate use of LMS products and this is something I've been writing about before:

• LMS Dissatisfaction on the Rise
• Do You WANT an LMS? Does a Learner WANT an LMS?
• Moving from One to Many - LMS Products are Two Generations Behind
• Tools for On-Demand Information - An LMS?

The paper about social software is definitely worth reading to get up to speed on issues such as Integration vs. Separation (or as I called it Point Solutions vs. Suites and Composition), their introduction to Social Software from a learning context, and their point that LMS products are incompatible with a learner-driven environment.

However, I agree with Jay that the bigger reason that LMS products are causing us grief in corporate learning applications is that while we want some aspects of what an LMS provides, we don't want our content to get stuck inside the LMS in the form of a course that makes in useless in other modes. Further, it causes us to think in LMS terms (course).

The counter argument for why we need an LMS centers first and foremost on tracking required learning and secondarily on helping to communicate learning requirements. This makes me wonder if we wouldn't be happier ourselves and for our learners to have a system with the following main functions:

1. Invisible tracking - tracks the web pages that each individual visits and activity that it corresponds to. This is similar to web log analysis today, but would include tracking of the individual via cookies and analysis to say that if you hit particular pages, then a particular event occurs.
   
2. Email blast utility - give us tools to communicate to individuals and allow it to base communication on event completion or selection criteria.
   
3. Reporting - tell us who has completed what events

The advantage of this kind of approach is that it breaks down the walls so that content is just content and still gives us the necessary tracking and communication. You'll notice that I've not included any method of communicating about particular learning requirements. My assumptions is that you'll just create emails or web pages that tells people what they need to do.

If we believe that Course and Courseware Fading and that much of the learning content that we'll provide in the future will be in the form of things that do not look like courses, then don't we have to move to this kind of learning tracking and communication system?

Of course, The Innovator's Dilemma of Learning suggests that this solution may not not come from any of the big LMS players (see also Do You WANT an LMS? Does a Learner WANT an LMS?).