Basecamp as a Learning Management System
Posted Nov 05, 2005 in
I’m just throwing out a thought into the wind, here, but I suddenly wondered if any academics out there are using Basecamp as an LMS, or for teaching administration generally.
It struck me that Basecamp already has quite a few features that would be viable as learning and classroom admin tools—particularly things like the ability to assign milestones to individuals on a project. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an RSS feed of all your upcoming assignment due dates? Would it make students more likely to get things done on time?
In terms of multimedia, it’s easy enough to upload files for discussion to the interface. The messages section is very blog-like—you could pose topics for discussion and watch the fireworks unfold. A student could post a draft essay onto the integrated Writeboard and the teacher could annotate it, and then have a versioning history to see what changes each participant has made to the work.
It’s been a while since I taught in the classroom, so I’ve got relatively little direct idea how online systems are supporting teaching. I do have problems with the current LMS tools. In particular, I don’t like the way they tie up learning materials—which are after all created with public funds—behind barely accessible, proprietary, password-protected barriers. Basecamp is a log-in system, too, so it may not be much better in that regard.
Mmmm, Basecamp. Every product I’ve seen from 37signals has the look + feel of, dare I say it, Apple design—and by that I mean expensive, smooth, well-featured, well-integrated, pretty, and easy to use. I use the Writeboard for collaborative document authoring when co-authors live outside my office firewall and DP is a concern. I’m not sure whether Basecamp works as an LMS though. A good collaborative discussion tool and decent calendaring are not in themselves groundbreaking for teaching and learning systems. And there are a lot of competing systems out there. To my mind, Basecamp competes more directly with web-based collaboration “environments” like Macromedia Breeze or Elluminate’s Live. But it is pretty.