Learning Management Systems
A learning management system (LMS) is a one-stop-shop for teachers, students, and parents to create and access meaningful content related to relevant learning experiences. A good LMS makes all of the tasks necessary for a high-functioning learning environment easy and efficient for all users. The most recent addition to my LMS repertoire is Schoology, and Education Week published a fantastic Prezi outlining features of a great LMS using Schoology as an example. Take a look at the Prezi shown below to get an idea of what an LMS can offer you.
Choosing the right LMS
When selecting an LMS that is right for you, your school, or your district, it is important to investigate components of the LMS across a variety of categories. Advice on this topic abounds and one source of direction includes Education Week's Digital Direction article by Katie Ash - How to Choose the Right Learning Management System. My recommendation would be to create a comparison matrix for the following aspects of any LMS you may review with key questions you know you need answered:
- User-friendly/Learning Curve/Interface
- Is there anything that is NOT customizable (rubrics, pages, etc.)?
- Is it easy to customize/configure?
- How user-friendly is the platform?
- What level of “tech expertise” would someone need in order to function well with this LMS?
- Tech Support
- What kind of technical support can we expect?
- What does implementation/roll-out look like?
- Security → Is there a lockdown browser available? Are there built-in security features for students?
- Are there outage or reliability issues?
- Will our subscription/contract continue to include updated components as they are developed? How open are developers to teacher/student/parent/district feedback?
- Organization (by company, by organization, and by individual user)
- Collaboration (students AND teachers)
- Can students in different classes/sections collaborate?
- Can students in different schools or different grade levels collaborate?
- Can more than one teacher look at and/or edit a specific course?
- Assessments/Assignments/Rubrics/Grading/Feedback options
- Are grading functions simple?
- How does this compare to _________ (Google Classroom for instance)?
- Are there any built-in tools for differentiation (assigning to different groups/creating different assignments you only want some students to see/read-aloud options/etc.)?
- What analytics or data collecting features do you have?
- Can these be compared across grade levels?
- Can these be tracked to show student growth?
- Can you track growth based on standards?
- Are there ways to schedule or customize these reports?
- ePortfolio possibilities (not essential, but is a growing component of many districts)
- Analytics
- Integration with other online tools (LTI)
- How does it work with or integrate with other digital tools?
- Communication Tools (discussions, calendars, news/announcements, notifications, parent portals, access of parents and students with these tools)
- Is there a calendar feature and will it sync with the calendar apps I use (or could potentially use)?
- What social networking features are available? (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
- Visibility → Can parents access what their students can see? Is there a parent portal? Is there a great deal of training needed for parents?
- Integration with current systems (i.e. Google Apps for Education, online textbooks, etc.)
- Does the grading feature work with the current SIS (student information system)?
Possible Options
There a wide variety of LMS options that boast different resources and features for different audiences. Listed below are a few of the systems I have had personal experience with, but many more can be found at eLearning Industry's article on The 20 Best Learning Management Systems.
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| https://www.edmodo.com/ |
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| http://www.d2l.com/ |
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| https://moodle.org/ |
Post your feedback and experiences with different LMS platforms in the comments section below!
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