Just very recently Google announced the release of CloudCourse, calling it both an internal learning platform and also a course scheduling system. Built entirely on Google’s App Engine, it is primarily a scheduling platform which integrates with Google Calendar. From the videos and the pages put up on the link http://code.google.com/p/cloudcourse/, I could only figure out that it is a basic scheduling tool and not quite there to call it a learning platform.
Coming from Google, built on its own App Engine, I wonder what Google wants (or wanted) to do with the tool. Given that it doesn’t even have features to upload documents to activities or sessions, it looks a little amateurish for the kind of potential a system like this could have.
Of course, there is no limit to what I would think a system like that could include – e.g. my first thought was whether it supported SCORM or any other standard like that. The question is not warranted given the features it describes clearly on its information site, but I did hear some murmur around a new LMS being launched by Google. And that would definitely be news! To some relief (I would be wary of Google as a competitor ), CloudCourse is still a very primary interface for scheduling of training activities. Being open source will definitely help it reach a wide audience. That, however, is still something to be seen.
My take: CloudCourse is not a learning platform but a pure course scheduler platform. I would have really liked to see support for at least some documents to be attached to the activities or sessions. I think, next in line is integration with Google Docs as it would definitely make a lot of sense to have an activity which links in to Google Calendar and has a host of Google Docs around it pre and post the activity.
My question in the context of LMS systems is – Is Google warming up? Will it ever launch an LMS based on its App Engine? I hope I have not given them this idea now!
