Sunday, November 14, 2021
Small victory
Amid the unending "virus" torture, which appears to be fading in many states but still running full force in Demon Woodward and Demon Inslee's torture chamber, and amid this year's unending bad weather, I try to create and treasure small victories.
This one is especially delicious and vindicacious. My courseware has been working properly in the Blackboard and Moodle LMSes for three years. Many universities are switching to the Canvas LMS for unknown reasons, probably cost. Canvas was slow to handle SCORM, and until now it didn't handle SCORM properly even in the systems that were supposedly equipped.
Free testbeds are no longer available for any of the LMSes, so I have to rely on the kindness of customers to lend me a temporary login on real systems. Last year around this time I conducted a long and careful test of my courseware in a Canvas system, and determined that it was only partly functional. The lessons displayed, but grades weren't recorded. Without access to the inner workings of Canvas, I couldn't draw any conclusions. Other users were having the same trouble, so I had to assume without proof that Canvas was the defective side.
But I know from long experience that the system is usually NOT the problem. The problem is usually on my end.
This week an existing customer using Blackboard found that her university is switching to Canvas and asked if I could try it out. She kindly finagled a login, and THIS TIME it works perfectly.
I didn't change anything. Canvas must have fixed its problems. The whole setup looks different now, and it's much easier to use as well.
So a little gloating is called for. Normally this type of incompatibility is my fault. THIS TIME it was the system's fault.
So a little gloating is called for. Normally this type of incompatibility is my fault. THIS TIME it was the system's fault.Labels: Constants and Variables, Equipoise
¶ 2:36 PM
