Course Management Systems: Bad Pedagogical Practice?

There is an interesting article in Educause called "Toolbox or Trap: Course Management Systems and Pedagogy" by Lisa Lane from MiraCosta College.

http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/ToolboxorTrapCourseManage/46576

In summary, the argument is that most commercial Course Management Systems (CMS)* hamper the development of sound pedagogical practices in online teaching.  She makes a lot of valid points like:

• They can force an unnatural structure to your course
• Creativity in pedagogical design is sacrificed for efficiency
• Faculty don't know what all the possibilities are with a particular CMS

However, CMSes should not always serve as our scapegoats.  There are a couple of things to keep in mind about CMSes.

• CMSes have significantly lowered the barrier to entry for creating web based resources.  When you deal with having to move an entire university's courses online, as opposed to a single faculty member's course, you have to think of scalability.  The online teaching  adoption rate could not be matched if we were limited to teaching only HTML publishing for creating web content.
• FERPA and accessibility issues are not always adequately addressed in third-party web applications.  Granted some CMSes have a ways to go with accessibility issues as well.
• The problem is not the technology, it is the way it is used.  I work extensively with Blackboard Vista (one of her examples of a bad CMS) and Moodle (one of her examples of a good CMS), and I can make either one of them behave pretty much like the other one.  There is some functionality and usability that is lost on BOTH sides of the equation between the two systems, but at the end of the day I can do most of the same things in both.  (Just for the record I do prefer Moodle, but there is some functionality I miss from Vista.)

I think some of her critique is really that CMSes cannot be everything to everybody.  Part of basic software design is that you cannot include every feature that everyone wants.  If you do the system becomes unusable.  For those who want to be more creative in their pedagogy I would recommend a different solution.

CMSes have tremendously helped progress the development and use of online resources in teaching.  They have also given us an opportunity to discuss new teaching strategies with faculty.  Isn't this called the "teachable moment" and isn't it what we educators yearn for?  By the way, have you ever tried to change anything in academia before?  Patience is a virtue, and baby steps are a necessity.

Greg


*CMSes are also referred to as Learning Management Systems (LMS)

Posted by gdkraus ( Jul 31 2008, 10:39:43 PM EDT ) Permalink Comments [2]

Blackboard Contract for UNC System and thoughts on Moodle

Recently, Blackboard announced that "The University of North Carolina & North Carolina Community College System Select Blackboard for Statewide e-Learning Platform."

While Blackboard is heralding it as a "system selection", I think it's just spin.  In reality this is really more of a short-term (3 year) economic solution for the UNC system's current users of Blackboard, which includes us and Charlotte and UNC and maybe others.  While the release would imply that all UNC schools would have Blackboard forced upon them, that is not the case.  Really this agreement should be applauded as a collective bargaining agreement that probably saved North Carolina some money.

Some might read this news release from Blackboard though and fret about implications with Moodle or other open source LMS solutions, as NCSU and other UNC schools are in the middle of evaluating these tools as replacements for Blackboard.  The thing is that, at least at NCSU, a potential migration away from Vista would take a minimum of 3 years, which would actually be perfect timing with this recently struck agreement.  But, while I'm on the subject of LMSs, I'll take a moment to talk about Moodle versus Vista. 

While Moodle and open source solutions represent a shift to a better ideological place, moving to Moodle isn't a no-brainer decision.  Moodle represents a great deal of pain if it would be selected.  Migrating faculty to a new system would take a lot of resources, both financial and in man-hours of both training staff and faculty. Also, who really knows what problems Moodle could potentially throw at us down the line if in fact we went with it as a enterprise-level LMS?  The problems could potentially be even worse than what we've seen with WebCT/Bb Vista.  This is probably something that could be researched, but to the community at large, this is a total unknown. If in fact Moodle did have a serious problem, the only difference would be that instead of being able to point at Blackboard as having deficient support, we'd only have ourselves to blame.  And as a last point, the money involved is a moot point, they both (Moodle and Blackboard Vista) would cost about the same amount according to our best estimations.

Now don't misunderstand me, I do like Moodle and I'm very much in favor of piloting it and I am an advocate for open source.  I'm also not saying sticking with Blackboard is a no-brainer either.  I'm just trying to represent an opinion/argument that doesn't get a lot of air time.  I think we often over-inflate Moodle or paint too rosy a picture, what we need is an as-objective-as-possible comparison of the two systems and an equally objective decision to move forward.

Posted by cdmorris ( Jul 23 2008, 03:52:04 PM EDT ) Permalink Comments [1]