Category: lms evaluation

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LMS Evaluation Viewpoint 2020

Laura Gekeler

  If you are faculty, if you’re ever surveyed about your institution’s LMS, participate! If you are faculty, if you’re invited to a focus group, speak up. If a member of administration renders a strong opinion, ask why, ask for sources. So tell us – what do you like about Canvas and why? What don’t you like? What do you like about Brightspace? Don’t like? Why? What about Blackboard, or the open source kids like Sakai and Moodle? Have you ever used them? Tell us, what do you like, don’t like? Be specific. Does it matter? Does open source matter to … Continue reading LMS Evaluation Viewpoint 2020

21st Century Learning, LMS, lms evaluation

Trends in learning management systems

Laura Gekeler

The dots I’m connecting here: Sugata Mitra’s 2008 TEDTalk on the hole in the wall learning experiment, ie, kids without structure or teacher teach themselves. (More on this). Crowdsourcing. A mass of people working on a problem can and usually do find excellent solutions. Why not apply that to learning?  iTunes U now incorporates learning management system features, but not the interactive, collaborative ones. The University of Notre Dame’s LMS has never supported student preferences for how the student wants to be messaged. The University of Notre Dame’s LMS is a repository for copyrighted material and a gathering of FERPA … Continue reading Trends in learning management systems

Course Management, Current Affairs, lms evaluation, Web/Tech2 Comments

Buying Blackboard : Speculation Continues

Laura Gekeler

It was in Twitterland that I heard the April 19th announcement that Blackboard was contracting with Barclays Capital to respond to non-binding offers to buy. And that’s all that Blackboard press release said and all it said it would ever said. But it did say offers plural. At the end of this listing will be sources so far who’ve engaged in this entertaining speculation. My own speculations are informed by the April 14th, just prior, release from Blackboard, to whit, McGraw-Hill and Blackboard Launch Combined Course Solution Worldwide. a phone interview with OpenView Venture Partners who recently invested in Instructure. … Continue reading Buying Blackboard : Speculation Continues

lms evaluation, Off Topic2 Comments

A Day in the Life …

Laura Gekeler

As the LMS replacement project moves forward, I was asked to validate what the heck I do all day… Back in November when I calculated support activities weekly for our current LMS, I only accounted for half my time. What do I do the rest of the time? So, today I wrote notes. This is what happened today. No wonder I can’t find buckets or categories to put this stuff in! 6:00am The alarm clock rings. 7:30am On the way out the door to work discovered one of my sons had left his homework binder. 40 minutes round trip to … Continue reading A Day in the Life …

Course Management, lms evaluation1 Comment

This week’s LMS Choice Announcements

Laura Gekeler

  As the end of life looms for Blackboard’s CE/Vista product increasingly regular reports are being received of institutions’ choices for its replacement. This week’s announcements included two large Blackboard clients, UMass and UEN (Utah Educational Network). UEN, not surprisingly, announced the decision to support their statewide network with Instructure, built by a Utah-based developer. Their announcement here. Today, UMass Amherst announced their decision to phase in Moodle over the next two years (just beating the event horizon for the CE/Vista end of life, Dec. 2013). John Dubach, CIO for UMass Amherst, writes of their decision. Continue reading This week’s LMS Choice Announcements

Course Management, Here at Notre Dame, lms evaluation, Teaching and Learning1 Comment

Notre Dame’s current FTEs and skill set supporting our CMS/LMS

Laura Gekeler

  The University of Notre Dame has some unique characteristics, but these are not necessarily advantageous towards fully utilizing the best of teaching and learning technologies, including the LMS. The major factors your institution must consider when benchmarking your course management staffing: Does your institution have a School of Education? If you do, they will tend to keep the educational use of technology ‘fresh’ on your campus. Or perhaps I should say, they could do that, if you’re intentional about allowing them to. Does your institution have a distance education program? Are you thinking of starting or expanding one? Instructional … Continue reading Notre Dame’s current FTEs and skill set supporting our CMS/LMS

Current Affairs, Here at Notre Dame, lms evaluation, Web/Tech

What does an LMS do? What should it do?

Laura Gekeler

If you think you’re evaluating a replacement for your current system and you don’t know the answers to these two vital questions, think again. As Blackboard’s adopted products, Vista and CE, near their end of lives, many institutions are again evaluating what’s next. Stay with Blackboard on their next generation product? Maybe even re-define what “it” is? Do you really have to replace “it” with a monolithic “system” or are the technologies that enable learning chosen one at a time as best fit for your institution and then glued together by a central authentication system and/or portal? I wrote about … Continue reading What does an LMS do? What should it do?