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July was Lollapalooza but with LMS / VLE conferences
331 Plays3 months ago
In this episode of Online Education Across the Atlantic, hosts Phil, Neil, and Morgan dive into the conference season in the world of learning management systems. They discuss D2L's focus on engaging interactive content through the acquisition of H5P, Anthology's new direction under fresh leadership, and the challenges faced by Instructure in clearly communicating their product roadmap. The conversation also touches on the potential impact of AI on content development and the future of LMS products. Join us as we explore the insights gained from attending user conferences, the strategic moves companies are making to stay competitive, and the importance of understanding the needs of educators and learners in the ever-evolving landscape of online education.
00:00 Morgan and Phil covered four conferences.
08:34 D2L focuses on interactive content for education.
11:16 Reflections on H5P and its acquisition.
19:48 AI's impact on content development and adoption.
25:53 Instructure's school vision includes ecological exploration.
28:01 Similarities in product development and lifelong learning.
34:47 Comparing AI in education and K-12 impact.
40:47 Misty Frost marketing Instructure moves to Spokane.
49:06 Critical assessment of educational technology market trends.
53:42 Anthology's realistic approach to competition and market strategy.
59:16 AI and new leadership revitalize education market.
01:02:57 Is new leadership guiding Moodle effectively?
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Transcript
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello and
Conference Circuit Recap
00:00:09
Speaker
welcome back to a midsummer online education across the Atlantic. We're taking a little bit of break recently, but we certainly wanted to come together since there's so been so much activity with the LMS or VLE conference circuit that we've been going to and thought it'd be worth covering that for our listeners. And before we got into it, I think we were all lamenting how much conferences can be draining on us and not necessarily the not Not necessarily a thing that we can keep doing time after time, especially with all those humans that you have to deal with. So are you glad you're back home and have no business travel coming up soon, right, Morgan?
00:00:51
Speaker
Yeah, no, i'm i'm I'm home for a bit and I'm very happy about that, though I could do with some rain. I i was talking over the weekend about inventing a German word that means watching TV set in Yorkshire and lusting after the the rainy grey drizzle because it's it's been too hot. Oh, well, i'm I shouldn't tell you that on Saturday I'm going to Yorkshire Morgan.
00:01:19
Speaker
You did to me, Neil. You did to me, Neil. I'll send you a postcard, though. Well, we're heading up to the mountains again to Greer, Arizona, to get our break from the heat in the valley. And that this time of year, every single afternoon, you have a thunderstorm. So we'll have plenty of rainy weather up in the mountains as well. Not quite Yorkshire, but closest we can come to in Arizona.
00:01:45
Speaker
So the topic
LMS vs VLE: Key Differences
00:01:46
Speaker
is, as we look at it, it's sort of interesting. We do get a lot of interest in the learning management system or virtual learning environment market and news. Quite a lot of you listeners and readers of our different newsletters still seem to be quite interested in it, which It's an important topic. this is I like how the UK describes it, a virtual learning environment. That captures what we're dealing with. It's virtual. It's the online space, whether it's for online programs, whether it's for hybrid or face-to-face and augmented. It's the online virtual space that you do, your environment that you access your learning.
00:02:30
Speaker
I find learning management system a little bit pretentious, like, oh, we're going to manage what you learn. Well, quite often the LMS is not where the students are doing the learning. It's where you get your assignments, your grades, ah keep things organized, but it might be other places where you do your learning, quite often even publisher materials.
00:02:52
Speaker
So I like the VLE description, but part of the reason I mention that is because of its importance. This is the environment where students learn. So it's always going to be important, despite the decades of talk of these systems becoming commodities and not really mattering.
00:03:09
Speaker
they do matter and which system you work with matters quite a bit because they're all going in different strategic directions.
July LMS Conferences Overview
00:03:18
Speaker
So given that, three well actually four big LMS companies have had their conferences in July. We had D2L Fusion in Toronto. We had him InstructureCon in Las Vegas. We had Anthology together. They own Blackboard and that that was in Orlando.
00:03:36
Speaker
And then Power School, which owns Schoology and the K-12 market, they were up in Seattle. So we took the hit for Neil while he set back comfy and warm at home. Morgan and I went to all four of these conferences, and so we just wanted to talk about what we saw.
00:03:54
Speaker
And ah heads up, we've covered this. We have different coverage of the conference, what we learned, not for power school, but by the time this publishes, Morgan will get her power school note out there.
00:04:07
Speaker
But before we get into the details, I actually want to sort of give a little bit of a teaser. And that
Vendor Conference Insights
00:04:13
Speaker
is the fact that it's interesting that in terms of market momentum, the value of the conferences and how well they did, in my opinion, was in reverse order. Put it another way, Instructure It was the least impressive that I saw. D2L in the middle and Anthology actually was the most impressive. So why do we say that? We're going to get to that fairly soon. So with that in mind, any initial observations on the importance of the user conference season for understanding where vendors go? Is this even a good topic or is it just about events that you go to? Like how much insight do we get from these?
00:04:54
Speaker
I think they're they're hugely important, and I sort of say that um at my previous employer, who shall remain nameless. um They have not been nameless, but okay.
00:05:05
Speaker
For a long time, they didn't understand the need of of going to user conferences and they didn't let us go, which which I found massively problematic and it really affected my ability to understand because not only do you get a lot of depth and color from talking to the people from the actual company and sort of more detail on the on the presentations. But you get those side conversations in a much more kind of concentrated fashion. And you hear things that you don't hear, um either from clients in a formal engagement, or even in chitchat, you get a lot more color and ah and a much more stronger sense of the zeitgeist. So I think they're massively important.
00:05:50
Speaker
Yeah, I concur with that. I think it just got adds that other dimension that you don't get from kind of press releases and product development releases, really. You get the opportunity to kind of hear from the people themselves and probably, perhaps most most importantly, the experiences of kind of different users from the institutions themselves. They give you a really insight track to towards what's going on. So yeah, I think I wouldn't understate their importance. I think they are kind of really valuable.
00:06:17
Speaker
And I would add in the importance of alcohol um as market analyst, as market analyst, you get to talk to people in unguarded moments and alcohol can be an excellent method to get some deeper insight into what's really happening, not through press release filters. So I think that's part of the picture as well.
00:06:39
Speaker
So let's start out and we'll just go chronologically with how they how they occurred. So the
D2L Fusion Highlights
00:06:44
Speaker
first one was D2L Fusion. um They held that in Toronto. First of all, I love that. I mean, what if I'm going to travel, I'm sure this will change other people's plans. But if I'm going to travel, put me in an actual city where I'm not just in conference land, but I actually can see the city.
00:07:05
Speaker
On the part of all Canadians, I need to intervene at this point and and point out that you you were in Toronto. okay okay i haven't gotten so far in the I don't know if you're specifically pointing out my mispronunciation. or okay yeah By the way, they ah so that's an interesting point. D2L did a good job taking advantage of their home base of Toronto, and they had little quirks in there talking making jokes about how to pronounce things.
00:07:34
Speaker
about various Canadian type elements. And I thought they did a nice job. It made it really feel like, hey, we're hosting you in our home. and They had, I'm not big on the land acknowledgments the way the Canadians absolutely love to do, but they did a really good job at this conference. The guy who got up and spoke about the land and the heritage and where it came from, he was entertaining. And there was so many elements that made you feel at home. So high marks to them for their location um of the conference. And so I thought they did a great job. but
00:08:13
Speaker
The big focus they have, and it can continues from last year, is all on engaging content creation. They're all about that as a company. On one hand, you could say, well, there wasn't a whole lot new because everything they showed this year they announced last year but now it's much more real and much more fully thought out. I actually think
D2L's Strategic Focus
00:08:35
Speaker
there's a benefit to that. They showed some continuity of the strategic direction that D2L is going in and they're just going all in on helping people develop engaging kind engaging interactive content.
00:08:48
Speaker
So a lot of what they're doing is showing what's happening in Creator Plus. And Creator Plus is an add-on tool for content authoring, particularly around interactive elements. The biggest news item during the conference was the acquisition of H5P.
00:09:06
Speaker
which is another ah content creation based on HTML5 that's almost becoming a quasi-standard, at least outside of the United States, on doing some, again, interactive content development. And they that was the biggest news announced at the conference. ah So they that's where that's where they've gone. And that's where they believe their strategic advantages. They're trying to tell customers,
00:09:34
Speaker
We have stayed core to our mission of teaching and learning, and we need more engaging content, particularly now that with COVID over and people accept digital education, while we've got to do a better job. That's essentially what their pitch is, and they're really going all in on that. and To a degree, I don't know if that's, I mean, we've seen it, but if that's surprising, some I've heard some of their competitors say that's a risky strategy doubling down on content, which is the one area where generative AI is most likely to disrupt it or undermine assumptions within there. But have you guys been ah surprised with how much D2L is going down the path of engaging kind interactive content development? Is there specialty?
00:10:20
Speaker
Not massively, because i I've always felt that D2L... I mean, it's interesting, you you're talking about the kind of dichotomy of the distinctions that we use for the virtual learning environment over here in LMS, and maybe one speaks to you know the more administrative features that are an important and dominant part of these platforms, and then one maybe has more of a pedagogical focus. And I kind of feel like you know these products have those both those two aspects to them and I've always felt that kind of detail are maybe stronger on the kind of pedagogical side maybe that's just some of their messaging so to that extent um I'm not overly surprised and I i you know
00:11:07
Speaker
I like it when a company has a clear strategy and you can see that playing out. And I think, you know, I guess we'll get to that. But I know that reading some of your reflections on the conferences, that perhaps hasn't been the case across the board. So, you know, that is that that is admirable. I think the HIP purchase was really, really interesting and garnered a lot of interest over here. And I think it's a really well-used and well-regarded product over here.
00:11:35
Speaker
um And I think that applies to other geographies like Australia, for instance. I think there's probably some concern around the acquisition, but I think that's the kind of concern that is always generated when these things happen, or what's going to happen to this? Is it going to you know inhibit our use of something that we really value and rely on? And I don't think that's necessarily the story. But no, not massively surprising. I mean, the H5P patch, I think, is really, really interesting because I do think I think in terms of interactive kind of enhancements of VLE experiences, I think H5P and probably Articulate Rise are the two biggest ones over here. And so that is major over here um that they've they've acquired it. And it'd be interesting to see how H5P gets differentiated in terms of you know the benefits of using it with D2L versus the benefits of using it with
00:12:31
Speaker
you know with other platforms are really interested to see how that how that plays out, but it it it feels like it they're not going to go down the route of ring-fencing H5P for Bright Space exclusively.
00:12:43
Speaker
Yeah, just to be clear for our readers, they have very much said, we're going to keep this as LMS agnostic. It's going to continue supporting even competitive systems. But D2L says, but of course we can have a deeper integration and a smoother experience. And you know that's that's what a lot of this comes down to.
00:13:03
Speaker
I think their strategy in terms of the content development is really interesting. and And it's one of those other differences that, you know, keep emerging between the companies in terms of what they're doing. And it raises some interesting options in terms of like how you think of the LMS, you know, both as and and it seems to be a a way some of the others are reaching towards, especially with AI, you know, using AI to to create content. I do need to share rather one poor woman whose session I was in at InstructureCon. I think it was on something to do with um alternative credentials or something and a big part of her
00:13:42
Speaker
presentation was on using H5P. And of course, somebody yelled out from the audience, D2L just bought them yesterday. We got hecklers in conferences. And her face, it was like I really felt for her. It was a surprise though. I mean, I don't think very many employees of D2L had any heads up ah of it until the announcement at the conference. They seem to have kept that pretty quiet leading up to it.
00:14:11
Speaker
I'm interested, Phil, you know because you alluded to the fact that maybe H5P is more used in other places, but I just wondered how what's your sense of how widely used H5P is in the US?
00:14:23
Speaker
It's not, well, the difference being like if we've we've helped with different ah tenders, RFP processes, and if it's in Canada, it's almost a guarantee, and actually the UK, it's almost a guarantee that one of the minimum requirements is H5P integration and the ability to use that as a key tool in the content development. And so it's just like, we have to have it, period.
00:14:47
Speaker
In the US, I'd be willing to bet half the people we talk to don't even know what H5P is. I mean, there's a subset that sees it, a subset that really likes it. It tends to be more in centralized curriculum
Challenges for D2L's Creator Plus
00:15:00
Speaker
development systems where you have a deeper instructional design bench working on tools, but it's definitely a minority. You very seldom will see it as this is a minimum requirement. You have to have it.
00:15:15
Speaker
So I know that's not quantifying it, but the the nature of it is all the way from you have to have at its minimum requirement to what's that? Oh, my friend uses it. I heard about it.
00:15:26
Speaker
And as you pointed out in your in your tweet, which I thought was very good about, they they've really cornered the market on letter number letter. Yes. Yeah. D2L, H5P. And they hadn't even thought about that. So John Baker, the CEO and founder, he was laughing when he saw that tweet. But then he pointed out, if you combine the two, that you get the two and the five from D2L and H5P and it's D2L's 25th anniversary. And he said, hey, maybe that's why we bought them, to make the whole nomenclature work.
00:15:57
Speaker
The thing that surprised me, and I wrote about this in my post, is the business model behind this. That's more of, I don't know if I would say it surprised me, but I'm calling it out as a major unknown in this process. Creator Plus is an add-on.
00:16:14
Speaker
And so it charges extra money. And I get the fact, and I wrote about the fact that I think the LMS market is underpriced for the value it provides for universities. And because it's so cheap, it forces companies to do things that aren't in the interest of what their core customers need. So we'd be in a better world if prices were higher. I know that's not a widely held view, ah maybe on this call, but not in general. But the point is, I get the pricing need But by positioning Creator Plus as an add-on and putting so much development there, they've run into situations like, wait, you can do content development within the core LMS, within Brightspace. You can do content development within Creator Plus. Wait, you can do content development within H5P or Articulate. and And so I asked the question when I was there. I said, from an educator perspective,
00:17:11
Speaker
Tell me where the line of Brightspace content development ends at the beginning of Creator Plus begins. H5P, I get that you haven't fully thought through what how it's going to integrate. You just announced you bought it. But just between those two, where's the line between those two? When should I as an educator or school need to go to Creator Plus? And what was fascinating, I asked executives in almost every meeting I had, and I have three and a half different answers on what that was, which was very indicative. They themselves don't have a clean story on what the difference is, and I think that's going to make it hard to sell upsell the way they want to. they and They kept coming back to, but it's really important
00:18:00
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, but that's not enough. How do I know if I already have enough in the LMS? And therefore, what's the risk that the message comes across of, wait, you're putting all your development into add-on products, not into the core of what you have. So I consider that my biggest open question from their strategy is they've got to get that messaging and story worked out to have a chance to make this work long-term.
00:18:27
Speaker
Otherwise, they're going to have a lot of current customers confused on why they're being upsold. I talked to one school who did an evaluation. I said, did you evaluate Creator Plus? And they said, no, even though it was pretty clear they could use it. And they said, we wanted an apples to apples comparison. So no add-ons, just the core LMS.
00:18:48
Speaker
Well, that positioned them D2L in a place of not showing their best product for what the customer wanted. So I'm not saying it won't work. I'm just saying it's an open question and I saw a lot of signs they haven't thought it through all the way. On the positive side, I met their new CMO, which he was joking because he had just joined and he read a post. i wrote that mentioned their umpteenth new CMO, Chief Marketing Officer, and so that's how he introduced himself to me. Hi, I'm the umpteenth CMO, but I will give this. It's way too soon to see what effect he'll have on the organization, but he really, more than any other marketing person I've met at that company, gets the issues and gets the problem and gets strategic issues like this. Get your messaging correct. So,
00:19:38
Speaker
Definitely a lot to watch there, but it was quite interesting. So if I ask you guys, what is the difference between Brightspace and Creator Plus? Do you have any idea? Nope. I think the content development and the add-on side of things is interesting in terms of what AI does to affect that. I mean, and I know there's obviously efficiencies and it's kind of a different ah different way of doing things if you're doing things natively within.
00:20:07
Speaker
these tools, but you know this there's so many more outside avenues through all the kind of things that you can draw upon external to a VLE or an LMS through AI content creation and developing your own GPTs and all that kind of stuff that I guess is a kind of another question of how how much that will affect people just wanting to adopt their own kind of ecosystem of tools. You know there's kind of that idea of students doing that going away and kind of using their own tools. It'd be interesting the extent to which instructors and educators go down that route as well and therefore what is the value of some of these things natively in
00:20:50
Speaker
these products. And I don't really know what the answer is there. But I think that's a line of thought that comes to mind around these kind of things. And I guess a potential risk around ah strategies that are focused on that side of things. But are we seeing a real shift in in momentum away from sort of the external face? In some ways, we're moving. An argument could be made that we're moving towards more of ah a walled garden again.
00:21:18
Speaker
or something as more and more things get get included. And and i you know I kept calling it a closed loop system, but it'ss it's more the return of the walled garden in a way. and And it's linked to that cost issue, as Phil pointed out, I think. But I think i wonder if we're seeing that and what how that's going to play out. It's going to be interesting.
00:21:37
Speaker
Well, I tell you, whether it was delivered or not, D2A had the best argument to answer Neil's question that I saw. The highlight of the conference was they were going to redesign a course page, and they you know talked about the different things that we're going to do. And first of all, everything was live. All live demos, if Wi-Fi hiccup, they just rolled with it. They were very authentic.
00:21:59
Speaker
But they had this person doing on the main demo stage. ah We're going to do, it I think it was in 90 seconds or two minute, 90 seconds. Let me redesign the page and it became a race. So they have this huge countdown 90, 89 going through. And she was using AI to do things like create ah formative assessments based on this.
00:22:21
Speaker
component from the course in this section of the course. And so it was using AI, Creator Plus, all this stuff together embedded in a walled garden, as Morgan saying. And it was fun. Like, while you're watching, the clock's going down. Will she make it? Will she make it? And I swear, I think she made some mistakes just to make it even tighter. She finished redoing the page with two seconds left. And it was fun.
00:22:48
Speaker
But by going through that, that I'm not saying they're going to win, but at least that's the best argument I've seen to Neil's question. Why should it be integrated versus external? It's like because it all works together and makes things simple and it all fits in one place. I don't know if they're going to go with that message, but they had a pretty interesting approach to it.
00:23:09
Speaker
So let's jump on to the other ones. We'll talk about the comparisons as well in a little bit. um This is will be our Lix Friedman podcast, although not quite two or three hours, but we are gonna be, this is an extended version. But let's look at InstructureCon in Las Vegas and start with you, Morgan, if you can describe, well, once you've got past the extreme heat of getting over to the event,
00:23:35
Speaker
Why don't you summarize the conference or at least the main things that you saw at the conference and your thoughts on them? Yeah,
InstructureCon Recap
00:23:43
Speaker
and it it really was hot. It was 119 degrees at one point outside Fahrenheit. ah So my my goals in the conference were was never to go outside, which I succeeded in until I left. And that was that was traumatic. But yeah, you know,
00:23:58
Speaker
instructor still throws a good conference, you know, they they inherited the W ah the ah the web CT sort of fun idea of people dressing up and things like that. There's certain an attractiveness about that, ah you know, lots of new things, both improvements to the the platform in terms of things like block editor, and the thing that got the most cheers was signatures on on internal emails, which which perplexed me knowing that And then, you know, of course, there was AI, and, you know, they had a big thing, so Sal Khan walked out onto the stage unexpectedly. And, you know, there was a smart search and ask your data, those kinds of, those kinds of things, which, which were good.
00:24:44
Speaker
In general, though, you know, and it all sort of struck me because the theme of the conference was the ecological exploration, you know, so as part of that fun theme, you know, they walked out in in Explorer costumes, and ah Matt Patinski actually walked up in a Boy Scout uniform, which which was funny on lots of levels, a he had lots of badges on. so I'm picturing an ACDC concert, but okay. yeah was It was a little bit like that. but and and you know I just kept thinking, like where are we going? Where's the map? And and I must say that
00:25:22
Speaker
I really, out of all the conferences, i i read when I'm not ah at a Blackboard conference or an anthology conference, I really miss their approach to roadmaps. They have the best approach to roadmaps. you know It's clear to understand when it's coming, what it's going to look like, and and things like that. They never told you told us it was going to take 10 years for for Ultra to get here, but but still, and was it was clear. And I wish other people would sort of do that. and you know Instructure was better, but when it got down to to to power school, it was even it was even tougher to know. But Instructure had this ideological exploration theme. and And I sort of made a snarky comment to to several people about how, you know, as part of the conference giveaways, there was a
00:26:07
Speaker
a compass on the top of the water bottle and you kind of needed that to figure out where they were going because it wasn't a clear sense of what is next and and and what things are going. Certainly one of the sort of take-home things that I did get was about this sort of trying to create a system where everything was included as well because you've got but of the parchment acquisition and certainly there are a lot of ambitions that came out of the presentations or around parchment at the conference in terms of helping people ah select places to go to and facilitating things like dual enrollment and enrollment in college and things like that. So you sort of you can foresee a future potentially where they never have to leave that environment.
00:26:53
Speaker
to quote a piece and in in in in Forbes in the last couple of days, it'll become the fabric of our existence. how yeah I saw that press release disguised as an article.
00:27:05
Speaker
Yes. ah But you know, it wasn't clear how all these parts would work together. And that there was an ambition there. I was also interested to follow through on the new partner ecosystem that they were talking that they had been talking about in prior to the conference. and And that was interesting, you know, it landed up being much more straightforward than I thought it might have been. you know So they're going to have different relationships with partners, you can buy in at a certain level, you get certain kinds of help and and and assistance. But in general, you know people seemed happy. But also people seemed confused about where they were going and a sort of ah a lack of a big vision, I would say.
00:27:48
Speaker
And is this similar? i Neil, I know that you went to an event ah less than a year ago in the UK. I don't know if you got a similar feeling from when you went to that event, I think in Liverpool.
00:28:01
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i i yeah, there's definitely definitely similarities. I mean, I think in terms of the conference, one of the things I actually spoke on at the conference was around kind of lifelong learning and I guess that kind of wider sense of how their strategy and kind of products might interface with moves towards lifelong learning. So there's kind of definitely echoes of what Morgan was talking about there.
00:28:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think similar to to what Morgan said as well in that I do remember i remember being sort of hit with you know a whole array of product directions But yeah, similarly didn't really get the sense of you know what the trajectory was and what the roadmap was on those things. And I have to confess that I found that quite over overwhelming when that that presentation took place there. There was so much that was covered. And I guess AI has kind of catalyzed even more the kind of product development. But it was slightly overwhelming. um And i I think I wrote a few things down. But you know I think in general, and we might get to this,
00:29:14
Speaker
I'm a much bigger fan of the the incremental, smaller, less exciting things that make a difference than the big set piece things.
00:29:29
Speaker
And maybe that's, well, almost certainly that is the cynic in me. ah But the things that excited me when I um when i was there were things like the Canvas offline, yes which I don't know whether was mentioned in the conferences. It felt like it was kind of announced kind of slightly to the side. but Those kind of things that, I mean, i they did mention around the conversational AI for kind of, I think, intelligent insights in a national data. you know That felt like a really nice feature and a nice way of interfacing with the kind of intelligence that a VLE will kind of produce on students and kind of in other areas.
00:30:06
Speaker
But yeah yeah, I definitely experienced similar things, you know lifelong learning, because it's kind of ah it also kind of a big-ish topic over here with potential kind of changes in how things are funded over here um and the product stuff. I definitely kind of yeah echo what your but what you what you're saying there, Morgan. I'm just interested as well, because you're saying that you know, your preference for Blackboard's approach to a roadmap and you saying about the kind of lack of sense of a bigger vision and where things are going. You know, is that is that a departure for them? Is that something that you would characterize them more generally as as lacking? I think they've become less clear. My sense is that they've become less clear. I mean, something I did hear from a lot of people
00:30:54
Speaker
at the conference was that they there was a lack of specificity about when things were coming and what they would look like when they got there. And people were frustrated by that. My sense is that that is different from what was before.
00:31:07
Speaker
I just particularly like the the the Blackboard. There's almost like a PowerPoint structure that they have, and I like that because it it makes it very clear and easier. And I have to dig harder and and work harder to figure out. It's all about me, really. Well, to pick up on the dig harder, that's my perspective. is I remember Josh Coates, the well second CEO, but the main CEO of the company.
00:31:29
Speaker
And he we're talking about this years ago. So it gets to your point. Is this a departure for Instructure? And he said, let's just admit it. He said we're the most successful disaster product company that I've ever seen.
00:31:42
Speaker
Like they knew that they always had a challenging product, chaotic, chaotic is the right word. So they were never that precise, but they were doing things and and customers liked it. and And when they did things, they got good feedback. So I think the departure is now when you say, well, wait, what are you actually delivering and when?
00:32:06
Speaker
Then I become like Morgan. I was trying to research it ah just in my thoughts for the conference. And i I do things like, well, let me go back six months and see what they said then. Did they deliver what they said within the next six months? With Instructure, it took me forever to even be able to answer that question. And the closest I came was the Smart Search.
00:32:30
Speaker
which is sort of a foundation or AI powered, but in a vague way. It's not actually delivering generative AI capabilities. It's just giving greater search across their different data sources. But it took me a long time to figure out Wait, when did they promise? Did they hit that deadline? Is it doing what they said? It's just hard to see. That's what I think has changed. It used to be some things were chaotic, but at least when they did things, it was precise. Now it just feels like there's a lot of hand waving.
00:33:05
Speaker
And I didn't see it. And I'll add one other thing and it really goes to the AI. Their AI, when you say big picture, you know, I'm always trying to disagree with you, Neil. When you say big picture here, I look at a their AI vision and its structure.
00:33:20
Speaker
And it feels to me like it's more defined on what they're not going to do than what they're going to do. So the biggest thing they've done, ConMigo, Khan Academy integration, which by the way, you can use ConMigo with other systems for free as well for faculty. Now it's deeply integrated, et cetera.
00:33:37
Speaker
So that's all about con. Then they have this new framework, how they're going to help their partners integrate AI and put it in there. And that's all well and good. And I actually like the framework, but so much if you look at any specifics of AI, it's about what Instructure is not going to do. But when you try to figure out, well, what is Instructure going to do within their own product line, that's where it's just hard to nail down. So that's my perspective on that.
00:34:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think the conmigo thing is really interesting because garnered a lot of attention when it was announced and You know, there's different ways you could look at it, you know, this is an impressive you could look at it from the point of view This is an impressive partnership with someone who's pushing the boundaries around ai as a teaching tool Okay, that's one way of looking at it actually rather than doing it ourselves but I think and I know this was something that you talked about morgan, but I think it it veils what they really think about AI and it's position within the product for you know learning and teaching more more explicitly, I think. um I mean, I actually like some aspects of the Khan-Migo features. I think that i think in an yeah I've said previously, I still look at a lot of the AI kind of teaching and learning focused things within LMSs. And I think there's a bit of of orthodoxy and nothing massively excites me, although I'm a difficult person to please. its
00:35:02
Speaker
Whereas some of the Khanmigo stuff, you know, I do think it has, it it feels a bit more, a bit better thought through and has some kind of interesting, just little features to it. But yeah, I think, and and maybe I'm stealing from some of the points that you made Morgan, I know when you're in your post, but I think it i think it it does avail, you know, canvases,
00:35:28
Speaker
position on all this kind of thing and i think i do think the k-12 association is a is an interesting one as well because i think actually my my position for a long time has been actually you know, educators in the university could actually learn a heck of a lot from K-12 teachers and the way that they approach it. But that doesn't mean that they're particularly receptive to that. And if they see certain things badged in a certain way, then, you know, it's, it's you know, even even getting some instructors to think about quizzes within university level programs can be a challenge because they might feel it kind of trivializes.
00:36:06
Speaker
you you know the the university experience. So when your product kind of conveys that, however subtly, then that's a challenge, I think. It's not going to sell the system as much as they think it might as part of what I'm hearing. And I agree with you though. It's a little bit unfortunate because both, I agree. I think there's some conmigo tools that are really good. And there's a lot of K-12 approaches to teaching and learning that should be copied in higher ed. However, in reality, that's not that big selling point to higher ed for better or worse.
00:36:39
Speaker
I just wanted to jump in and steal some of Morgan's points too. That's that's what we're all about here. i'm I'm becoming increasingly critical of ConMigo and ConM Academy generally, i think but I think that's the topic of another another podcast which we can have. Okay, okay we'll put that off then. I will point out after the conference or at the end of the conference, first of all, Instructure announced that they're being sold from Tama Bravo and the public market and getting acquired by KKR.
00:37:09
Speaker
And I wrote about that, it's primarily a financial story, but it really, I'm guessing, morg I stopped by for one day at the end of the conference on the way home from D2L. Did
Instructure's Sale to KKR
00:37:20
Speaker
you hear anybody talking about the sale? Because it had already been leaked in the media. Yeah, not a thing. Not a thing at all. Yeah. So a non-story then, really? Pretty, pretty much. And nobody, I haven't even heard any concerns from people yet, you know, about what that looks like, you know, because often you will you will you will hear that. But I haven't heard that at the moment. But ill i'll I'll do some more digging in. One other sort of weird thing, but I'm particularly interested in catalog as a product. And and I was sort of struck, I went to every single catalog session that I could. and
00:37:54
Speaker
you know, it seems there's a weird disjuncture in the company between how they're, you know, like catalog is there, and the catalog people are apparently very responsive, and and are really engaging with users, but it doesn't seem to play into the company in general, like you don't hear hear it.
00:38:11
Speaker
And, you know, there there's a sort of a sense there's ah a YouTube that I love of a Dutch guy who has a garage, and it's like half an inch wider than the car. So he has to do this really complicated thing to get the car in and then back it up so that he can climb into directly into his kitchen through the door, and things like that. And sometimes it feels like catalog is like that people are sort of going out of there, you know, they're doing all kinds of crazy stuff to make it work.
00:38:38
Speaker
um But they do seem to be doing it, ah but that was sort of interesting to me as well. like it's there There seems to be a disjuncture there. Well, I think they need to figure it out because we're talking about lifelong learning, really catalog and parchment are two of the key components they own that could help them develop more of a lifelong learning approach, but it's not coming together yet.
00:39:01
Speaker
I think we also need to point out that um Instructure would win any karaoke battle between the others. Oh my lord. That was stunning how good those people were. It's hard to describe. Could you sing one of those songs for us? not she No, no. What on earth are you talking about?
00:39:20
Speaker
So so one of the entertainment nights, they had a a karaoke evening. So it was it was it was people at the conference, but also a bunch of instructor people. And they were amazing. Like the one guy saying take on me the 80s song and and there are multiple like changes, musical changes, like in terms of tone that happened there. And he pulled it off. Wow. There were a number of people. So they had a band backing live band backing it up. So not just playing the can music.
00:39:49
Speaker
And so you would get up on stage. There are probably a thousand people out there watching. And I was joking with Justin Minard about, hey, we should get up there and sing. I heard the first song or two. I'm like, no way. These are like professionals who are up there. i have The most impressive karaoke singing I've ever seen was at that event. And half of them, as Morgan said, were Instructure employees. i I now want to know what you and Justin would get up and sing.
00:40:18
Speaker
Well, I already did Paradise by the Dashboard Lights with ah Chuck Severance from Sakai Days, so that that one was ruled out, but ah it was a good thing we didn't even think about doing it. I'll just put it that way. Perhaps you could call it LMS Zeppelin. Like you could do it. Oh, yes.
00:40:37
Speaker
Okay, all right, let's move on. So, oh, I will, last point on them. I think, this is something to watch with them. Not many people understand that Instructure has hired back Misty Frost, who was their head of marketing for much of their career. And she's like, I described them as, she was a secret weapon to helping to maintain their culture, making smart decisions. She's now working with Instructure again, and they're moving to Spokane next year for their conference.
00:41:06
Speaker
That's a high risk, high reward maneuver. The reason they're doing it is they want to get back into this community feel. We're all together the way they used to feel in Keystone and Park City, but they're too big to fit in to Keystone or Park City. So the idea with Spokane is we can take over this town and it'll feel like we're all in this together.
00:41:27
Speaker
I like that because it's a high-risk, high-reward ah move, and it'll be really interesting next year to see if that helps capture the old feeling of the conferences. It used to be a key strength of theirs. Do we know where D2L is going next year? Savannah, Georgia, I believe. Well, that's pretty nice. Yeah, yeah. Although in a sweaty time of year.
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah. OK, let's move on to the third.
Anthology's Strategic Direction
00:41:53
Speaker
ah Anthology together. Anthology acquired Blackboard. So this gets to one of the key points. When Anthology bought Blackboard, it seemed like their message was, gee, golly, we have a lot of applications, so many you'll never keep track of it. And that's why you should love us, because my gosh, we're big. That sold nobody. It was a terrible message.
00:42:17
Speaker
Now they tended to manage Blackboard better. So Blackboard, in my opinion, got much better on hitting dates. And it gets to that roadmap that Morgan talked about. We're putting out these features within a three month timeframe, these features in a six month timeframe, and they got so much better of defining it and just doing it. However, that was a matter of just doing the same thing, but doing it better. So I give them credit for that through last year, right after last year's conference, they got rid of Jim Milton, the CEO of Anthology.
00:42:52
Speaker
And they did the typical, oh, it's to spend time golfing and being with his family. I don't even know if he golfs, but that was such BS. He got pushed out after the conference and they brought in Bruce Dahlgren, who's a Silicon Valley savvy CEO. And he's come in and I saw this in Puerto Rico in January, but by this conference, it was so clear he's remaking the executive team and remaking the top level strategy for the company.
00:43:20
Speaker
And it's a simple thing, but it's meaningful. Now it's not, gosh, we have a lot of things. Now it's, we are LMS, SIS, and CRM. And here's our approach. And we pull it all together with a common data platform, period. And it was so much cleaner than they've done in the past. Now with Blackboard, which is now a product line, not a company,
00:43:45
Speaker
You have Blackboard, you have Learn, you have Learn Ultra, Learn Original, Learn SAS. You've had this branding confusion for years. Now it's simple. Now it is Anthology Blackboard is their LMS period.
00:44:01
Speaker
They do mention occasionally Ultra on terms of course corrections, but the definition of Anthology Blackboard is the full new system. It's all cloud. It's what we used to call Ultra. That's what they're doing moving forward.
00:44:17
Speaker
And that picks up on the second huge thing I saw. This is the first conference I saw in Anthology where they weren't competing with themselves. All their previous conferences, it's all about feature parity between Learn Ultra and Learn Original. And we're getting so much closer that you have permission to upgrade your course to Ultra because we have those features you've been whining about or k needing. It's out of the little pejorative there.
00:44:44
Speaker
But but that that was the feeling you got from them. And they would brag about their feature parity and, hey, now you should consider moving. This conference was completely different. It's we have Anthology Blackboard. We're competing with D2L Brightspace and Structure Canvas and Moodle. That's who we're focusing on. So for example, they have this content studio tool that they're announcing.
00:45:11
Speaker
And it's clearly positioned against Creator Plus from D2L. Now, we mentioned Creator Plus, and there's a whole add-on and extra pricing. Well, Anthology is taking advantage of it. They're like, this is part of the system. you've art if If you're an LMS customer, you already own it. And we're putting our stuff in there, and there's no additional cost.
00:45:34
Speaker
So they did that. They've always been weak on embedded video, particularly compared to Instructure, which created Arc. That became known as Canvas Studio. It's embedded video for taking video feedback from instructors to students, video assignments, basically embedding it throughout the system. Well, now Anthology announced their own video studio that they're going out with and that was a hundred percent well maybe not a hundred majority targeted at canvas now that will be an add-on but it's going to be free for the next year but they're doing all these things and what i like is they're actually trying to compete with their competitors now instead of competing with themselves they have moved past
00:46:23
Speaker
the big transition and it's like, take take it or leave it. this is We're going to compete and this is what we have to offer. So that level of change I found remarkable at the conference and a welcome for the market. The thing that was still a little bit surprising to me is they've had financial problems. They were getting close to not being able to pay their loan payments.
00:46:46
Speaker
They got a $250 million in equity investment from current investors, which essentially pushed that ticking time bomb, um a debt bomb, ah down the road by at least two years. So basically now, and you know they they have that, and they have more backing from their investors. But the point is, it's financial challenging.
00:47:09
Speaker
they're not They need to fix their finances longer term. What they've chosen to do, and pardon the pun here, they're going for broke. They're taking AI, they're embedding it throughout the product, and very seldom are they going to charge for the additional features.
00:47:27
Speaker
They're putting out the content stuff. It's part of the product. Even when they put out Video Studio that's an add-on, they're not going to charge for the first year. And they have been known to do very aggressive pricing to try to win deals. Centennial College, it was part of the win there. And they're essentially saying, yep, that's what we're doing. So they're going for broke. And it's deliberate. It's not just, here's one account. We'll do whatever it takes to win it.
00:47:55
Speaker
it They are saying we are aggressively going to try to compete and see that that pays off. On one hand, I love that from a market perspective because excuse me we need more competition and I like people taking big bets.
00:48:14
Speaker
But of course it raises a question. How long can they afford to do this if they don't start turning around much more on the product, you know, the wind out there? Like how long can they keep the strategy up? Um, so I like it, but it does raise a question there. So for me,
00:48:33
Speaker
And I will say in this conference, it's all live demos and very natural, didn't feel overly scripted. This was
Anthology's AI Innovations
00:48:41
Speaker
a surprising thing. This is the first time where I went and I said, wow, Anthology had the best conference of the three and really clean message. They use the conference the right way. And none of that says it's going to win. But I mean, from a conference perspective, I really came away impressed with what they're doing in Anthology.
00:49:01
Speaker
Does that surprise you guys to hear me say that? That's one way to think about it. I think just picking up on some of the stuff you said, I think that whole learn ultra chapter has just been a complete disaster, really, hasn't it? And I think it's actually it's it's just nice, I think, for the market to be out of that particular period. And, you know,
00:49:25
Speaker
As you sort of hinted at, who knows what the changes are gonna result in, whether they will breed success for for anthology and for Blackboard. But it certainly makes me feel more positive about the market that you know if you think about Instructure and D2L have been the real winners in recent times and the trajectory has kind of been in favor of them, but it's good that there is now seemingly some sign of backboards emerging from all of that kind of period to be more competitive and I think I guess you know the way you put it Phil was that they you know really focusing on being more competitive and was the way I think about it is this is kind of a
00:50:10
Speaker
uh they're not going to die trying and try to turn the company around i sort of think about in more of those terms that because i just felt they've been on such a losing streak especially in the uk and all they've got to talk about is a transition to ultra or all they've had to talk about is a transition about alterna so i respect the The the kind of enthusiasm and the way in which they they're going about it and you know Let's see what let's see what happens with that strategy, but I think it will certainly Make the market more interesting and for that i'm glad And you morgan are you surprised about this or do you even have the same view? I mean you weren't at the conference, but what's your perspective?
00:50:49
Speaker
No, i'm i I'm not surprised, you know, I think there's sort of a little engine that could going on there, you know, they've they've they've done some things right. And I keep thinking about it in terms of in sports terms, they remind me of Steffi Gruff in her second comeback, you know, she she came back sort of determined and and much more less less reliant on booming serves and volleys and and more of a strategist of the game. And and and I sort of see some of that in in Blackboard and and whether they can pull it off is is interesting. I'm not surprised it was the better conference, you know, the best conference that you went to, I can see why that would be the case. And it's it's cool that you got to go at least partly to all three to get that sort of strong sense of
00:51:35
Speaker
of the differences there. Yeah, it was interesting going to all three in such a short time period. Yeah, yeah. Where is Blackboard going to be next year? just as a And it's a pop quiz. I don't remember where they're going to be next year.
00:51:53
Speaker
I think there's somebody who's out west. Oh, well, ah we'll have to look that up. Yeah. But they, ah yeah, it just, it's interesting you mentioned the Steffi graph. It's like, accept who you are, accept your limitations, but go for it. be Be a better competitor in the market. I think that's actually a really good metaphor to what we're seeing there. um I used to get so frustrated the past two years with them where They were trying so hard and they were improving on their, like you mentioned the roadmap. They specifically say, here are the features or here are the developments in the next three years.
00:52:30
Speaker
With this group of things, there are 80 or 90% confidence that we have the definition of the product right, and you should rely on things to happen. Three to six months, here's the set of features, expect some changes, and this is like the reliability. They're quite precise on how to read a roadmap, and it's easy to go back and check, hey, what did they say six months ago? So they've been doing stuff like that,
00:52:56
Speaker
But then they would always, in my mind, focus too much on the Learn Ultra versus Learn Original and not focus on how do you stack up as a best of breed LMS versus Brightspace and Canvas, because that's what matters at the end of the day.
00:53:14
Speaker
something that frustrated me last year, and it was just a small thing, but it frustrated me was that they were explicitly going off to Canvas though, in terms of, in our road back, we're gonna do it through Canvas. Like they didn't say it that way, but it was clear from from how they presented it. And it's just like, come on, man, your road back is gonna be through Moodle. That's a much more likely sort of thing for the most part. And did you see any signs of that?
00:53:42
Speaker
Well, yes, I did. And I would also point out, I so i will relate that also to D2L. I think they're much more realistic on where they compete and where they can win. And whereas last year, is they want to believe that they can take on Canvas head to head, but they don't have anything lined up right now.
00:54:02
Speaker
They have been able to beat D2L. I mean, they beat Canvas head-to-head at Centennial College, but it was a D2L takeaway and there's sort of a difference there. And I think they're much more realistic where they can win and segmenting to be able to focus their efforts and not just declaring things that they wish were true.
00:54:23
Speaker
But from a product sense, they're directly doing things to say, here's where we're going to be better than Canvas. And I will also point out, in my opinion, it's not just marketing. They are the market leader for AI companies in higher ed LMS space. They have the most comprehensive vision of where they're going, the most aggressive usage of tools within their system and their AI content builder. The biggest uptake.
00:54:53
Speaker
biggest uptake of 500 and some schools using that already, but they're developing it out. Like what it does is expanding, and they're embedding AI in multiple places. So it's very different from its structure. Anthology was all about, here's what, not just we're going to do, here's what we've already done and here's the uptake. D2L, going back to them, they They have a much tighter message. They're branding their AI as Lumi, and they have a nice the formative assessment in particular. They have nice point solutions they're adding here and there. But it's not as aggressive as Anthology. Anthology has a sense of here's where we can be better than our competitors, not just are you
00:55:39
Speaker
good enough to beat Canvas or good enough to beat Brightspace. They very much want to say, and AI, we're the leaders and they need to react to us. That's the biggest thing that I saw. And they acknowledge if we're going to win, quite often it's on AI.
00:55:55
Speaker
They didn't push this as much, but the data element, what used to be Blackboard data, which was a nice cross system. So it pulled in data from the LMS, SIS, CRM, and had a nice data structure to it. They've taken that Blackboard data and expanded it across their product lines. And they're going to be using the data and analysis.
00:56:17
Speaker
as a way to compete and say we've got something better. But generative AI was an area where they said, listen, here's where we can be better and lead the field. And in my opinion, it's accurate. And it it was reflected out there. Now, it might be that AI shouldn't be the reason that a lot of schools choose a system. But when you are looking for it, they were it was surprising how aggressive they were in that regard as well.
00:56:43
Speaker
yeah And I guess I guess in an area where I often hear a lot of complaints that there's little differentiation, you know, that's Certainly going to help in that respect whether that winsome more implementations will wait to see but I know if you don't mind me saying I go crazy when I hear that little differentiation I this is such a non commodity market because a commodity market is means that ah you have a fungible market. You can switch from system A to system B without much of a change. You can switch your shaving cream from this to that. and it's You can do it on price. It's not that big of a difference. Look at the messages from the three leading LMS companies.
00:57:27
Speaker
D2L, we're doubling down around content development and helping people develop that. And structure, they're really trying to leverage the vision around owning parchment as well. I wish they would do more with catalog, but they're trying to do more of a holistic solution and dual enrollment and go in that direction. Anthology, they're the only ones that have an SIS, a CRM, and an LMS, and they're going to lead on AI.
00:57:57
Speaker
those are all strategically very different approaches. Even if, from a checklist perspective, they have the same features, I find them, I think there's strategically a lot of differentiation between them. It's sort of like saying that the market for motor cars is commoditized. Yeah, you can buy different motor cars, but yeah there's a very difference between an EV and a Hummer. And, yeah you know, it it it gets to your values and what you're trying to do and how you want to do it.
00:58:26
Speaker
And going back to it, I feel fairly optimistic about the market in relative terms right now, partially because Anthology is truly trying to compete.
00:58:37
Speaker
And a go-for-broke strategy, and I do know there's some financial risk, but they're definitely going for it. I like the fact that they each have a different strategic direction and vision and a different set of strengths, meaning that schools can say, how does this align with my institution's needs long term?
00:58:57
Speaker
But in any case, there's some good things about the market and it's very foundational what universities do So i'm not saying there are no problems in the market, but you know, I came away from this july feeling pretty Enthusiastic about the overall vle lms market and how it's going Yeah, I think I think I think that's true. I mean I think There there are times when this market has felt a little drab if i'm totally honest and actually AI has played a significant role in generating more interest because you know we're seeing how the different companies are kind of adopting that and we've got a lot more features and product developments. But I think you know with a change of leadership and a change of approach at Blackboard. um Similarly change of leadership at Moodle would be interesting to see how that plays out. You know those two kind of perhaps longer standing companies who've you know you could say have kind of got into trouble over the years and kind of lost business you know there there's changes there isn't there and there's kind of
01:00:05
Speaker
signs of life, if I can put it like that, which makes it just more interesting and more competitive and hopefully, well, just from my own selfish perspective as an animal analyst, just kind of ah more of an interesting story to tell than, you know, canvas and bright space of one again.
01:00:22
Speaker
Yeah, well, that's a wonderful segue, by the way. ah
Moodle's Leadership Change
01:00:26
Speaker
So Morgan's going to Mexico in October for Moodle Moot Global. Yeah, they have new leadership at Moodle, but you know, what I'm dying to find out is, will it translate into things similar to what I saw in the them anthology, such as, oh, they have rethought where their position is in the market and how they compete and how to convince people to use them.
01:00:50
Speaker
I know they've changed leadership, but do they have the actual strategy changes in place yet? I don't know if either of you have any insights into it, but that's what I'm really curious about. I did notice that the new ah the new CEO had brought with him a couple of senior people over from Pearson slash Boundless. so right How are we supposed to interpret that?
01:01:14
Speaker
Merle I think it's, ah you know, ah this a sign of of of some potential changes, if nothing else. So you know, we'll see how that how that plays out. I still notice Martin has a very large slot on the on the schedule and almost like the key slot so that is ah is a sign in the other way but I think you'll have to wait till late October until I come back from from eating my fill of delicious Mexican food in Merida. Yes, I appreciate you pronouncing that instead of me because so I couldn't even do Toronto.
01:01:51
Speaker
Yeah, i I don't have any further insight than what Morgan said. I've seen appointments from, you know, Pearson colleagues to Moodle, but I suppose, I mean, Moodle's, Moodle's, yeah, just as fascinating, really, because it's sort of just a very different type of company, I guess, essentially. So the kind of changes that you may or may not see will will be in a kind of a different paradigm of a company and so that's I think yeah I i i don't know I just am anticipating changes and I'm eager to to find out what they might be and you know what the strategy might be going forward.
01:02:29
Speaker
I must confess, I was a bit horrified because you know they they released a sort of early version of the program with just a couple of items on it. And the one at the top of the thing was a session from the University of Illinois, who part of whom is is using the LTI plugin of capabilities of Canvas to bring in Moodle courses as as an LTI plugin into Canvas.
01:02:54
Speaker
so That's like the, it's like what Chuck is doing over at Sakai. It's that similar type of approach. Well, I think the challenge, here's the challenge for Moodle Moot Global. I'll go to this brilliant writer I saw on the internet somewhere and the phrase talking about Moodle was very politely phrased as, oh, ultimately that matters and you can only live on the fumes of positive sentiment for so long.
01:03:22
Speaker
That. yeah Neil nailed it. That captures the situation moodles in, the positive sentiment of being open source. You can't live on that anymore. What are you going to do? And it is the new leadership leading you that direction. So that's what we need to watch for. I just love that phrase, by the way.
01:03:42
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, it's amazing what chat GPT suggests these days, isn't it? um Okay. Hey, well, it's great seeing you guys again and great to discuss at least all of our long travel days are paying off with a podcast episode. So we got that going for us, which is nice.
01:04:03
Speaker
So we will be, for our listeners, we're going to do one other episode in August, just sort of a mid-August update. And then once it comes into September, we'll be into season two and be running full steam ahead. But it's great seeing you all and ah great having this conversation. Thanks.