Week 11 Reflection: Learning Management Systems

This week's topic on learning management systems (LMSs) certainly struck close to home, as I have been teaching online with Desire 2 Learn (D2L), Vancouver Learning Network's LMS, since last January. As a result, I was very interested in this week's reading on the positives of LMSs in education.

This week's reading certainly sang the praises of LMSs. I would have liked to read more about the difference between full online courses and blended courses (classes that are in person but managed online on an LMS). The reading seems to discuss both simultaneously, not really specifying the differences between the blended courses at Ross's school (BCPSS) and the full online courses at Waymack's school (GCOC). Waymack's school has an 85% completion rate; do Ross's blended courses have a 100% completion rate?

I say this as a teacher at my school used to teach blended courses, but has since moved to teaching online full time. She finds blended courses to be more effective, as there are the positives of face to face communication, yet all the organization and independence of online learning. She is very confident that the future of education is heading in this direction. My personal experience with online courses is that the completion is nowhere near the 85% that Waymack claims to have at Gwinnet County Online Campus. This does not have anything to do with the LMS and is not a criticism of D2L (though I do have many criticisms of D2L), but rather with the "newness" of online learning to many students. In my personal experience, I find that most students find the time management and self-discipline of a full online course extremely difficult, leaving everything to the last minute. In many ways, I think a blended course, which is managed online yet has classroom time, would overcome these problems in many ways.

I think that I will be back in the classroom one day; my contract here is temporary and next year's layoffs mean that there will probably be a lot less positions and a lot more applicants. When that happens, I can see myself using Moodle in my classes. It might be a lot to do in the first year, but it may be viable in my second year. I went to a presentation recently and a teacher did a talk on how he used Moodle in his classes. It was very impressive, and he described success similar to Ross's. This reading has definitely made me think in this vein: what my future with LMSs will be when I am no longer teaching solely online.