Since the beginning of ONL I was wondering, why there is no LMS (= Learning Management System) used in ONL? Online learning and teaching without LMS? Not possible! There can be no better place to make sure, all students get all course information and access to all resources. And where else should student activities be monitored?
Discussions about learning platforms already last decades. At my university we have worked on Blackboard, WebCT and some others, I do not remember… . Since a few years now, our students work on our self-developed LMS. Over the years we realize more and more, that running such a LMS needs lots of personal resources (IT department/student management) for supporting this system. Furthermore, we realize that some of our students do not use the tools integrated in the LMS. They use (often changing) tools, they are familiar with from private or professional contexts.
Regarding the value of using a LMS, watching the video of Karin Watson was helpful for me in two points:
- The video statements validate two trends that we determine as well: First, Students might like to use tools for learning, they are familiar with and second, institutions might have problems to afford ongoing development of the LMS (problems, big companies like google, Microsoft, etc. do not have)
- I now understand the integrated approach in ONL: open web technologies like the main website, Blog, Twitter, etc. are combined with an area, were learners have to register/login (ONL community space), e.g. in order to submit parts of their work.
I think integrating more external open technologies, especially for communication/cooperation, could may be a useful development for our learning design. This enriched design might much better meet the needs of our professional part-time students.
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Watson, K. (2014) Learning management system or the open web, Learning to teach online UNSW. https://www.coursera.org/lecture/teach-online/case-study-learning-management-system-or-the-open-web-optional-1EHsq
ONL 192 – Topic 2: Always wondering, why ONL runs without LMS….