Selecting a Learning Management System

Video Transcription

Today, we're going to look at the process of selecting a learning management system. For today's lesson, I've chosen a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson which states, "Be an opener of doors." By the end of the lesson today, you will be able to identify the advantages and disadvantages of three major types of LMSs that we're going to investigate.

Now let's go ahead and take a look at the steps involved in the LMS selection process. Now it's important to know that this generally happens at either the school or the district level. First and foremost, you are going to want to look at the advantages and disadvantages of the available software.

Next, you're going to want to create an LMS selection committee. I highly recommend that you have at least one administrator. You're also going to want to make sure you have a technical person, and you're going to want the educators there. Once you've established that selection committee, you are going to want to create a decision making process.

Once those three things are done, it it's time to determine the selection criteria and then apply it. Figure out what your needs are and then see which learning management systems can help meet those needs based on their advantages or disadvantages. After you've applied the criteria, you select the most appropriate learning management system and you move forward.

Now let's take a look at three alternatives when choosing learning management systems. The first alternative we're going to look at is what is called a proprietary system. Proprietary systems are software that are developed and then owned by various for profit companies. An example of proprietary system would be something like Blackboard.

There are many advantages that go with proprietary systems, but there are also some disadvantages. The first major advantage of a proprietary system is that it's reliable. These systems are built by professionals and then backed by the companies that helped create them. So they have a vested interest in making sure that their systems work and are reliable.

They also tend to be very current. If these companies are going to want to make money off of their proprietary systems, the product has to be competitive. So developers are frequently updating their material, so that they can offer the next best thing or the newest element. So you know you're going to get something that is current with trends in academia.

Finally, there is a wonderful advantage of support. These proprietary systems, as we said, are developed and owned by companies so you know that they are going to be supported by that company. Sometimes that even offers things such as training or technical support to help you work through that proprietary system as you start integrating the learning management system in your classroom.

With those advantages, also comes some disadvantages. You definitely will have an increased cost with proprietary systems. Proprietary software can be expensive because one, these companies want to make money. Two, they've put quite a bit of money into creating the software. And it can also include annual licensing fees as they continue to update and make the product more competitive and current.

They can also be very inflexible, meaning that the user is not able to adjust the software. If you don't know how to adjust software, then this might not be a disadvantage for you. But it will be hard to add features or even fix some problems that you see. For these elements, you're going to rely on the company.

Also, the company may make changes to the software that you weren't ready for. Proprietary software companies might discontinue an entire learning management system that you've been using. So you need to be prepared that either the entire system as a whole or either some particular features that you use might disappear.

Finally, they are not easily distributed, meaning that proprietary software might only be installed on a certain server and then can not be installed on personal devices. Depending on your use of these learning management systems, that could either have a really great impact or a much lesser impact on you in your teaching environment.

The second type is what's called an open source system. These are software that is developed by individuals or associations and organizations. Usually, we are bringing together an entire community to help create this open source learning management system. A wonderful example of open source system is Moodle.

So there are wonderful advantages to open source systems. First and foremost, they're easy to obtain. Almost all of them are free or they have free elements that are involved, especially at a basic level. So you definitely can get your hands on it. You as a student can even go try out some of these open source systems to see what you think of them.

They tend to be very user friendly. Users can make changes or easily obtain available updates, so that you are able to really interact with the system. They tend to be innovative. These are built by a community of people who are often really up to date on all of the new ideas. So open source systems tend to push the line forward. And you might get some cool new elements involved in these systems.

They also can be very simple. These can be set up by a teacher without involving a whole lot of technical support. So that can be really easy for you. And also, you don't have any restrictions from a proprietary company. So there's a lot of customization that you can do.

Finally, they tend to be very collaborative. It promotes integrating with others because the software is so easily accessible that everyone can use it. With these advantages though, come some disadvantages that are going to look very similar to some of our advantages.

First and foremost, some funding might be required. Just because elements of it are free doesn't mean the entire learning management system is free. Also it's possible that you might need some more funds to help host or maintain or upgrade that software, or potentially to cover any sort of storage or database support that you might need. So there could be some hidden costs.

Also, additional resources might be needed. Sometimes in order to help integrate learning management system software into your system, you might need your IT person to especially OK it for you. So if you are not in a system where something like that is very easy, then you're going to want to look to see if that's going to present a problem for you.

Tech support can be a big issue with open source systems. Since they are developed by an entire set or community of people, there isn't always great technical staff that can help you in providing that kind of support with any issues you might need.

Finally, the quality and the security tend to be a little bit lower. Some open source software might not be as robust as some of those proprietary software as we talked about before, and they don't always provide that security or privacy settings that schools need. So you're just going to want to make sure that you check out the specific open source system before you move forward.

Finally, there are the cloud based alternatives, is sort of a tool box of resources that are available to everyone. It can involve things like bookmarking tools, document sharing tools, various social networking sites, so many other things that are available in the cloud that teachers can use virtually any of those forms of social media as a focal point for a various classroom activity.

Some of the advantages are you get tons of variety. You could use Google Drive to share documents and then dropbox to help store them. You could use Skype to hold a meeting and then Flicker to share images while people look on YouTube to share their videos. There are so many different tools that you can use. Camtasia can help you create those videos or audio. And a lot of these are things that students are familiar with outside of school.

Also, the cost is a huge positive. The cost tends to be very minimal if totally free for students. The only thing that comes in are perhaps costs in storage capacity or maybe faster downloading speeds.

Also, it tends to shift from a content focus to activity focused, meaning students are really using these tools to help create and communicate and collaborate. They are using the content to study, but all of these tools then become the vehicle to keep them actively engaged. And finally, you have tons of access to artifacts. Student can go back and look at work that they created later on. And you have access to these elements that have been stored in the cloud to show as examples.

The disadvantages are access. Cloud based alternatives can be open access to lots of different people, but if your student doesn't have access to digital tools outside of school, then you really have an issue here.

Also, there is an authentication issue. Proprietary and open source learning management systems provide authentication for getting into things like grade books and assessments. But those aren't always available on cloud based alternatives. So you're going to want to make sure that you look at the security and the privacy that's involved.

This isn't necessarily a huge downside or a reason not to use it, but you're definitely going to have to teach students all of those elements of being a good online digital citizen, so that they are aware that they are not the only ones seeing that information. There may be the outside world providing feedback, good or bad, on their stuff.

Finally, sometimes you can have too many tools. Kids can become frustrated when they have to learn to use new things that they don't know, or they might get overwhelmed from all of the possibilities. Also, sometimes it's really just difficult to use something that you use socially for school. So that might present some problems too.

Now that we've reached the end of the lesson today, you are able to identify the advantages and disadvantages of the three types of learning management systems. Before we move on, I would like to take just a moment for reflection. As you've looked at all of the processes in selecting a learning management system as well as three of the types that are available, what do you think would be the first type that you would consider for using the learning management system within your specific learning environment? Feel free to pause the video for a moment while you think about your answer to this question.

Now to dive a little deeper and learn how to apply this information, be sure to check out the Additional Resources section associated with this video. That's where you'll find links targeted toward helping you discover more ways to apply this course material.