I think that a default system is the beginning of the answer to your question about critical platform choice. You’re right that defaults are privileged, but certainly no more so than *sole* options. Platform-sampling might be built into a first-semester curriculum, and students could be encouraged to revisit and rejustify their choice periodically throughout their careers. I might start with the default, move to WP as a sophomore, and then to Drupal as a senior, for instance. I’d still reap the benefit of not having to platform hop within a given term, without suffering lockin.

I agree with the spirit of your comment about the value of platform choice. I should note that my proposal, prima facie at least, shifts the generative process from faculty members making curricular decisions to students in a learning environment, which seems like a good trade off. Still, I can appreciate the force of what you’re saying. In some cases it will be recommended and perhaps even necessary for a faculty member to require a given platform for a certain class. That might happen, for instance, in a publishing class, or a design class. But it wouldn’t have to happen in every class, which I think is a good thing – while I’m all for reflection and critical engagement with media, I don’t think that the wheel needs to be reinvented for every semester or every professor or every class. There is some real value in being able to elide over this decision in certain kinds of classes.

Two concerns immediately come to my mind about a model like this as an “enterprise solution,” and I’m curious what folks thought about these ?s at THATcamp.

The first is that this model presupposes both the desire and the ability for students to make a critical choice about how online they want to do their coursework. Should we expect it of all of them? Only some? If so, which ones, and when? You could address this by having a default platform, but as we all know, defaults are privileged.

The second is that it absolves faculty members of making a choice for the platform through which students engage with course material, and switches that burden to students. There are definite arguments for this, but one argument against it is that the process of choosing a platform is often pedagogically generative for faculty members. If the underlying argument is that the differences between CMS platforms will and should be flattened by bridging, then does that fact ultimately devalue the presence of a choice in the first place?

These points aside, your proposal creates all sorts of new and valuable questions that could certainly trump these concerns.