Innovation at Ammonite is not really a huge issue, it’s just a way of life. If something can be done better, needs to be done, if technology can assist or simplify tasks, learning activities or processes, if administration procedures can be automated - then it's just done, without fuss. It’s just a way of life for us.
Having said that, it is good to step back occasionally and to for us to appreciate what our great team has achieved in a relatively short time. This no-fuss, organic attitude to improvement and innovation has resulted in a platform that is so much more than a LMS. We call it a “Training Organisation Management System”, and even then that description hardly does it justice.
I was reading an article “What are some radical predictions for the future of education?” by Peter Baskerville Education Reform and Disruption the other day and it seems to me that while our terminologies differ, our platform and approach is addressing many of Peter’s predictions for the future of education and training.
One item Peter mentions, for example, is that he believes “Crowdsourced education” will be the "most sought after and valued education”. Our TOMS platform is a resource centre for ‘crowdsourced learning resources, tools and assessment items’. Authors and learning object developers are encouraged to upload their content so that it can be rated, ranked and used by potential customers. We believe that for this crowdsourcing of quality learning objects, the authors and owners of the IP must be recompensed for their efforts and to encourage them to continue developing resources for the crowd.