Luke Fernandez's recent piece on Moodle and Social Constructivism (blogged here last month and earlier this week) has stimulated some lively discussion in the educational blogosphere about course management systems and student learning.

Jim Farmer's guest blog in e-Literate gives a brisk overview of the development of course management systems like Blackboard, ANGEL, Desire2Learn, Sakai, Moodle, ATutor and Olat, and cites Peter Farkas's recent observation: “Now the choice of an enterprise learning system depends upon reliability, scalability, and ease of use.” And, according to Farmer, responsive technical support when it is needed—a requirement for any enterprise system.

More interestingly for me, at any rate, Farmer argues that eLearning Conferences should now focus on instructional methodology rather than information technology. He observes a gap between technology-focussed e-learning conferences that tend to attract information and education technologists responsible for system development and administration, and on the other side among faculty and instructors, elearning discussions exist as "tracts within the discipline oriented conferences."