EDU632: Blog 3

Rosa Conti
Aug 19, 2022
3 min read

Updated: Aug 21, 2022

Learning Management Systems: A 3-Part Reflection Series

Part 3 of this series reflects on my overall experiences in this LMS course, including the process of benchmarking and recommending an LMS. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

BEGINNING AN 8-WEEK LMS LEARNING JOURNEY

I have spent the last eight weeks learning about a topic I thought I knew nothing about: Learning Management Systems, also called LMS.

Before beginning this course, I knew that an LMS was important to my graduate studies in educational technology because it is the system in which learning courses are housed and all associated activities occur. However, I hadn't yet made the connection that my work in managing corporate compliance courses had already taught me a few things about LMSs, even though I don't work on an LMS team.

For example, I frequently make requests to my L&D team, such as running completion reports, adjusting user enrollment, and scheduling reminder emails. I never considered that all these tasks are executed from within our company's LMS or that the people I am asking to do them are performing LMS administrative duties.

In other words, this course taught me about LMS functions and the roles and responsibilities of an LMS administrator. I can now recognize the behind-the-scenes dials and analytics of our corporate LMS. Learning these aspects helped me gain a better holistic understanding (and newfound respect) of my LMS' structure, capabilities, and limitations.

INTERESTING LMS ROLES

Another surprising takeaway was learning about the many (core and extended) roles that can comprise an LMS team, many of which can have overlapping tasks. For example, I have long been interested in designing courses (both aesthetically and content). Still, there are varying job titles in these fields, and, until this course, I was never able to zero in on their nuances. Some examples are:

Instructional Designer
Course Content Developer
E-Learning Author
System Usability Specialist
Curriculum Developer

LMS EXPERIENCE

Being assigned and having the time to create mock courses in Canvas and TalentLMS was extremely invaluable to see firsthand how LMSs can differ. These experiential learnings gave evidence and highlighted the importance of good course design and features.

All courses should cater to the goals and experiences of the end-users: the learner. For instance, a course should always be created, designed, and delivered with the learner in mind (Foreman, 2018). This may seem like an obvious statement, but an LMS should be able to incorporate features that enhance a student's online education – which brings us to the next topic.

SELECTING AN LMS

Choosing an LMS for employee or academic student use is a significant project that requires considerable time, detail, and planning. For this course, we performed cumulative research over seven weeks, where the outcome was to complete a benchmarking activity and produce an LMS recommendation for a selected audience.

My final project focused on a higher education environment, specifically Post University. I carefully considered which challenges and opportunities of an LMS to focus on since there are many depending on the audience.

Read my LMS Proposal Paper

To determine which LMS to recommend to Post University, I performed a benchmarking exercise using the three LMSs I have experience with: Canvas, TalentLMS, and Blackboard. I began by identifying seven features I deemed essential to an LMS. Then, I searched online for a template I liked and created a similar format using a PowerPoint table. Below is the result of this exercise.

My biggest learning moment from this exercise was that without this objective examination, I would likely have chosen TalentLMS as my recommended LMS – and note that it scored the lowest on this benchmark chart. Because I enjoyed and appreciated the organization from the "Instructor" view when creating a course in TalentLMS, I subjectively forgot about the student's view. The learner's perspective, of course, is what matters most. By doing a feature comparison analysis, I could see that Blackboard offers a better learning experience for the student.

In conclusion to this three-part blog series, I now believe that the LMS world does not get enough credit or recognition for the intellect-focused, mindful, and creative work required for this field. The roles of selecting, implementing, using, and maintaining an LMS are not easy ones.

Even if I change trajectory in my aspirations to become an adjunct college instructor and eLearning Instructional Designer, the knowledge I've gained about LMSs in this course will benefit my work in corporate communications and training for years to come.

I discovered this podcast along my LMS study journey, and the topics and guest speakers are very interesting. There are several dozen audio episodes posted so far, all focused on eLearning.

References

Foreman, S. (2018). The LMS Guidebook: Learning Management Systems. Demystified. ASTD.

#PostUniversity