Fame at last

"Fame, (fame) what you like is in the limo ..." - David Bowie

James Dalziel wrote in the LAMS Newsletter:

"Why does Australia produce such good educational software? An articleSimon Shurville, originally from the UK, but recently arrived in Australia, has written an article with Barry O'Grady and Peter Mayall of Curtin Business School for Campus Wide Information Systems called 'Educational and Institutional Flexibility of Australian Educational Software'. It is an attempt to answer the question of why Australia seems to produce such good educational software, based on an analysis of LAMS, Moodle and Harvest Road Hive. This is a question I get asked all the time as I travel, so it's great to have a new perspective on this. For details and a link to a copy of the article, see http://lamscommunity.org/dotlrn/clubs/educationalcommunity/lamsresearchdevelopment/forums/message-view?message%5fid=583156."

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Australians love of gadgets means they make great educational software

"Go gadget ..." - Inspector Gadget Theme

In our recent paper 'Educational and Institutional Flexibility of Australian Educational Software', we advanced the thesis that Australia’s historical strength in distance learning has created a culture where academic and industrial entrepreneurs now offer a range of educational software that is well aligned with the demands of flexible education such as the Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) (which we rated highly).

Professor James Dalziel the inventor of LAMS sent me the following: "I agree with your observations, but would add to this a more general factor in Australia culture which is that we love gadgets and new technology, adopt them quickly, and actually use them a lot right from the start ... I think it is some sort of confluence of this rapid Australian tech adoption and use factor together with [our history of] distance learning, etc that have provided fertile soil."

Having lived in Australia a little longer now, I have to say I agree with James' observation. Australians do love and use new technology. Plus the free-to-air HD TV here is great!