Most universities and colleges nowadays employ course management systems to enhance instruction. Besides commercial systems such as Blackboard, quite a few Open Source learning management systems have become available in the last years, such as Moodle, ATutor, Ilias, Claroline and many more—some of which even have won awards. While I have encountered Moodle to be used as an alternative to Blackboard at the same university and at high schools, the use of Open Source Course/Learning Management systems within Institution of Higher Education is rare—at least here in the U.S. What are the reasons for institutions to rather buy a commercial system than using one of the freely available ones? Is it the quality of the product, user friendliness, administrative issues, political issues? Do Open Source systems lack a sufficient support system? Have you even heard about Open Source Management Systems?
With these questions in mind I would like to invite all people who have experience with any course management system—users, administrators, developers—to talk about their experience with course management systems, no matter if commercial or Open Source. What do you like/dislike about the software? What could be improved? Administrators, what kind of problems are you facing, what does it mean for you to keep such a system running? Would you recommend the system you are using to other people/institutions?
Your contribution to this platform will help to create a solid knowledge base about course management systems, which in future hopefully could foster improvement and understanding.
First as a User, I was a chemistry instructor at Cypress College for 2.5 years, 2/06 to 6/08 and wanted to web-assist my classes. The college was using Moodle at that time, so I trained in Moodle and started using it to post handouts for my lectures, as well as Tutorials and Study Guides. But what seemed to really involve the students were the discussion forums. They really increased student engagement, and ultimately their grades (I could see the progression from the beginning to end of the semester).
ReplyDeleteSimultaneously with the Cypress teaching, I also taught at Mt San Antonio College. They were using Blackboard, so I trained in that and started using it. Then in 2007 I started teaching at East Los Angeles College. At that time, they required the use of Etudes, so I also trained in that and started using that for my classes at ELAC. I think that Blackboard, Moodle and Etudes are all similar in functionality, but Blackboard certainly has a superior Gradebook.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I continue to teach chemistry at Mt SAC with BB, I have a new position at ELAC, assisting instructors to use techbnology in the classroom. Because of the cost (open-source), ease to learn, excellent support, and international usage, we choose to introduce Moodle for our instructors to post their Syllabi. And now we find that they too are developing discussion forums, preparing and posting audio and video files, and a whole wealth of material. Check us out as a Guest at moodle.elac.edu
ReplyDeleteAnother comment. ELAC is part of LACCD (the Los Angeles Community College District, where individual campuses often act independently. Many of the campuses use Etudes for all distance ed courses, but the requirement of passing a three week training course precludes many instructors from using Etudes for their F2F classes. In addition, ELAC has their own homegrown CMS (and more) called ACE (academic computing environment, go to www.elac.edu), using MS SharePoint, but up to now it has had some instabilities causing instructor frustrations. Hence the selection of Moodle.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for all the information! Before I went into IT, I taught art history and German, and used myself LMSs, i.e. D2L. And I agree, the discussion boards were one of the most successful features in the LMS. And I also agree, they all work similarly and roughly have the same features.
ReplyDeleteI looked at your moodle site and will look more in a bit. It's quite impressive. Do you feel it is difficult to get instructors use LMSs? What is the expectation of the students? Do they expect to find all material online?
It sounds to me as if moodle works pretty well from an administrative and a user standpoint. I am really interested how the administration works. And what instructors should know about the "other" side.
How would you say moodle could improve the gradebook?
Thanks a lot!! I will probably have some more questions later.
Almut
profedco@cox.net
ReplyDeleteStarted back in 1988 using a crude learning management system in conjunction with Kermit – before the Windows era began. Have see the whole technology capabilities progress as hardware, software, memory, storage, speed, WYSIWYG kicked in with more power.
Thought to keep in mind- Give Hemingway’s typewriter to a Dummie and You get DummieGoop.
The lead pencil is more powerful in the hands of a good writer than a MegaGygaPC in the hands of an illiterate. Same with learning systems. If you can’t teach…you can’t teach. Many super teacher out there. Some of the good/great ones don’t “cotton” to technology. Some of the less-than-wonderful ones don’t want to be revealed. Learning Systems demand that the person at the helm know where they are going and how to get there. OOOps.
I am/was/are part of both the Connecticut State University system and the Connecticut Community College System. With Visa/BB they offered training courses a few years back for the faculty. You don’t want to hear the percentage that took advantage of learning the system. And Connecticut ain’t Aroostook County, Maine – where incidentally Fort Kent is doing a decent job at the Distance Learning thing.
Next to my Engineering License, BS, AB, MS I have an E-Learning Certificate hanging on my office wall. As you folks know, Design; Develop; Deliver – 1, 2, 3. And, you really, really , really have to be into measurable goals and objectives. Great in-classroom teachers can overcome deficiencies in many cases with their personal caring, warmth, empathy, knowledge, etc. It takes a skill to transmit that over a distance or when filtered through technology. Long answer to a short question.
I’m with you-all on Discussion. Very very powerful tool in the hands of s skillful director. I use it very effectively with my adult learners in Quality Assurance, CNC Programming, Energy, Materials, and LEAN management class on line. Looking forward to using it in a couple of new courses “Lost Books of the Bible for Dummies” and “Leadership Lessons from George Washington”
I grew up in a place where we drove 100 miles to get to drive through 100 miles of woods to get to the first city. Back then Distance Learning meant sending in three lessons to a correspondance course before you got the answers to lesson #1.
IEI-LLC (International Education Institute, LLC ) is a new start up distance learning company for adult learners in the trades and professions. (Making on line empty seats available to youth offenders in the prison system. Are we good .... or what. )
Very open to being a close circle of folks that have a great interest in this topic.
Nice that geography is not longer a limitation – From an old dude that will celebrate his 70 th Birthday with four kids and 8 grandchildren. Getting the latest Kindle book thing as a present along with two dozen Martial Arts Books –moving up from TiaChi to Aikido.
E.D.Cormier
We use: Manhattan Virtual Classroom (MVC) it is an open source virtual classroom. It is used by schools and Universities throughout the world.
ReplyDeleteI am the administrator of the MVC install at our school. I create courses and occasionally deal with some requests. But, mostly the software is very intuitive and teachers figure it out; in fact they do things with it that I would never think of. It has a grades module and many others.
I love it and would highly recommend it. I subscribe to the mailing list; this list is the support for the software. I have both gotten and given help on the list. For most issues I have seen a turnaround of 1 - 2 days. But, perhaps of more value is the fact that the number of requests in minimal. Once you install it; it pretty much runs itself.
There is the issue of bandwidth for a local install, but most Universities have bandwidth, and secondary schools are getting there.
I have installed/used:
• Moodle
• Drupal
Other Open Source include:
• Joomla
Another support consideration is MVC does not require a database such as MySQL which the others do.
What I would improve is:
a social bookmarking system: Ed Marking that could be local to the install of the CMS/LMS for trusted content by and for peers.
cout << "Geoff\n";
JS Wiki
JS Blog
Okay, this goes against the grain of some of my beloved colleagues and friends, but I am not a huge fan of Moodle. Oh I like the fact that it is FOSS (free open source software) and I am a big fan of FOSS. However, I like the "feel and flow" of other learning management system software that is out there better.
ReplyDeleteI do not know the name of the other LMS I used for the online program that I was in...need to find out...but it was my favorite. However, I actually like Blackboard okay [gasp] as I can manipulate it as I wish and the student have no problem.
I do not think that Moodle is as intuitive and not as aesthetically pleasing.
My two cents :-)
Gilfus Education Group - Social Learning (Stephen Gilfus was a founder of Blackboard Inc. and left in 2007)
ReplyDeleteOur team just released a white paper on the current misperceptions of Social Learning that should be helpful to practitioners implementing learning management systems
"Social Learning Buzz Masks Deeper Dimensions Mitigating the confusion surrounding “Social Learning”
The Article is by Frank Ganis, one of our General Partners
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