Mashups and more - making learning content more accessible

Our new API is an exciting development for the dominKnow Learning Content Management System (LCMS).

By giving clients better tools to access the LCMS and the learning content it contains, we really feel we're taking the idea of re-usable learning content another step forward.

I'm writing this from the Brandon Hall Innovations in Learning Conference, where Stephen Downes opened with this morning's keynote address - a presentation on the development of E-learning 2.0 that included the audience's live blogging comments on one side of the stage while Downes' presentation ran on the other side. It was an interesting experiment, one that hopefully inspired the creativity of those sitting in the crowd.

Our new API is something that we hope will lead to some interesting and inspiring experiences as well. We can already predict some applications for it, such as simplifying the process for hooking the dominKnow LCMS up to an e-commerce site, for instance, or for allowing Learning Objects to be used in context-sensitive help within other applications.

What I think will be most interesting, though, is what others may try to do.

The new API opens up a world of learning possibilities and can help remove barriers to learning. We have no doubt that there are challenges out there, waiting to be solved and the API is an important way for us to empower our users to solve those challenges.