Learning Management Systems and PLEs

Learning Management Systems – I spent about an hour looking at comparisons of what various systems offered, and must confess, I was ready to run screaming from the room. All of the catch phrases are there, in abundance: transformational, collaborative, innovative. Integrated! Learning analytics! It seems that now the big market push is for e Portfolios, so that lifelong learners have “the ability to document their learning journey, and share their achievements with peers and evaluators beyond their graduation date” (thanks to Desire2Learn).

This appears to be a response to what Dr. Brady has voiced: the restrictive environment of an institutionally bound LMS that “wipes the slate” at the end of the semester, so that students can no longer access their work. Implications: imagine beginning your diary as a child, but online as opposed to within a small key-locked book. Over the years you continue to write, journaling about your thoughts and experiences. To have access to who you were at that moment, years ago – being able to go back and revisit those thoughts and impressions. To have documented your life, your education, your very soul. Being able to link all of your online/digital products in one place where they remain accessible for as long as you need or desire almost hints at a state of immortality.

There are several articles that address how to choose the LMS that’s right for you and they tend to agree. List the functionalities that you need, prioritize them, and then compare systems. But even at that, there were over 120 Learning Management Systems listed at one comparison site (http://www.sharepointlms.com/compare/2.html).

We have an LMS at work, and I tried to figure out whose software it is. When I right clicked and looked at properties, I found http://www.W3.org. When I checked their site, however, I discovered that they are the World Wide Web Consortium, “an international community that develops open standards to ensure the long term growth of the web”. So I don’t really think they authored my LMS, but possibly provided the template that was used for the web page I obtained the properties from. I suspect that the system itself may be Sharepoint, as that is also what is used for our internal web sharing. I have found our “learning Portal” to be helpful in that it has made the need to compile and store hard copy training records obsolete. I can now print my entire training history of over 20 years with just a click.

As for features, the LMS provides searchability by topic or operational area. When I log on, it brings up my job title and a list of position qualifications that go with that title. Unfortunately, they all show me as “missing the qualification form my qualification profile”, and then when you click on that, it notes “you do not have this qualification”, followed by “There is currently no course offered that imparts this qualification”. ????? So the LMS tells me I am unqualified for my position and there is no training available to remedy that.

I like that I can book just about any course that I am interested in; I make the request and an email goes to my manager asking him to approve it. Once he does, I usually have 90 days to complete the course. Much of the courseware offered on my LMS are canned Skillsoft courses; these tend to be text-based PowerPoint type presentations. You advance through each slide while voice over reads the text. As you complete a module, you are tested by multiple choice or drag and drop options. Your test results are immediately scored and depending on the lower limit of acceptable, you might have to take the material again. I find this whole approach extremely tedious, plus, if it is complex information, I take a screen shot as I pass thru each slide so that I have a “text” that I can refer to. I do not believe that any training course should be offered without content resources available. Some of the courses border on “simulations”, such as one that taught about using Adobe Flash. I did find this approach helpful in learning a new procedure, such as the correct order of activities, but for the most part I think that I am more likely to do a google search on a topic and learn about it that way than depend on the content available to me in the system.

I think that technology all comes down to user friendliness. WebCT seemed workable enough; now that UNM has moved to Blackboard Learn, I am finding some frustrating issues, particularly as relates to the “settings” that are apparently selected by the instructor. For example, in one class I am not permitted to make an attachment to an in-class email. In the other class I can, but if I have more than one document I can attach only one, and have to complete another email for the other attachment. Same with the discussion threads; only one attachment allowed! I think I did find an in course blog that permitted me to do two attachments. A small thing, but frustrating. I also prefer to have links to the major course areas listed in the menu to the left. In one of my current courses you must click on a learning module to open yet another menu to access discussions related to that module (as opposed to just clicking on “discussions” at the left).

In sampling through some of the available LMSs out there, I did find that they were beginning to find ways to enable plug ins or access to the more popular social media sites such as You Tube. Desire2Learn offers “other social tools including instant messaging, email, blogging, and hundreds of third party integrations including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn©, Google, Microsoft Office, and many more integrations.”

I found the article on Personal Learning Environments to be intriguing. In a previous class with Dr. Grassberger we learned to develop Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), a compilation of resources (hardcopy, digital and human) that we would frequently turn to when researching or seeking information. As Sclater noted in his article, current LMS approaches encourage dependency rather than autonomy by restricting what is accessed and how it is used. So we, as adult learners, navigate back and forth between the LMS and our “outside” resources to accomplish our tasks. In this sense, we have each created our own personal learning environment – it just isn’t an integrated one.

It appears to me that developers are trying to respond to the needs of students and educators as well as to those of administrators. As we grow into digitally complex individuals who seek to come together for collaboration or just to share information, new ways to bring our personal tools into the mix, whether by way of a higher learning experience or just as a social aside, there needs to be a better means of integrating all of those digitalized pieces of ourselves together.