Definition: A learning management system (LMS) is a platform (often available as a website that can be accessed through a web browser as well as through an app that can be accessed on a phone, computer, or tablet) where a course’s materials can be stored and engaged with online.

Some examples:

-Canvas

-Moodle

-Blackboard

Some features (note: these are features that may be available on some, but not all LMS, and is not exhaustive; most of these come from my experience with Canvas and Lingco):

-gradebook

-modules, where instructors can sequence lessons and choose whether students need to do the assignments in order (“prerequisites” option)

-auto-graded assignments (assignments can be designed with one or more correct answers, to be graded automatically upon student submission)

-messaging

-announcements (with the option to turn on likes and comments)

-discussion threads (with options to upload text, images, or video, and to reply to classmates)

-space on assignments for instructors to leave feedback in the form of written comments or audio or video recordings

-speed grading tool

-grade by question tool

-annotation tool for writing comments directly on students’ submissions

-annotation tool for recording feedback on audio recordings

-student view (the option for the instructor to see what students see)
-dashboard or homepage, where the student or instructor can see all courses in which they’re enrolled, or those that they’ve chosen to have displayed on their dashboard

-integration with other apps (e.g. panopto, h5p, piazza, google docs, ecomma)

-tech support chat

-analytics (student engagement, time spent on the site, time spent on an exercise, grades, percentage completed, etc.)

-to do list

-calendar

-push notifications (assignments coming due, assignments graded, new comment, new announcement)

Figure 1. An example of a dashboard on UT Canvas

Figure 2. An example of the teacher’s view of a student’s submission in grader

In the video lecture “Can Education Lead Technology? The PLATO Story”, Dr. Cope made the distinction between technology that has been made for other purposes, but has been repurposed for education and teaching (for example, using Twitter, a social media site, for communicating with the class or to build a corpus for a class activity), and technology that has been created to be used for the express purpose of education.

Learning management systems fall into the latter category. Dr. Cope concluded this lecture by saying that “The hand-me-down tools we get from commercial uses, business uses, popular home uses of computing. They're not good enough. We really need to be building stuff which is dedicated to learning, dedicated to the kinds of relationships that happen in classrooms. And as we do that, we're gonna have to invent things, they're not things that just where it's all available to us”.

Canvas is a popular, very powerful LMS that can host all kinds of classes, and offers most of the features I listed above. As was stated in the book chapter “Chapter 1: Conceptualizing e-Learning” by Cope & Kalantzis, and reiterated in the video lectures for Week 1, technologies don’t change pedagogy, but we can exploit the affordances provided by technologies in order to “do” pedagogy with them. And we can choose to do things exactly the same way (or translated as closely as possible) as we would in the traditional classroom, with traditional textbooks, or we can choose to implement ideas that we have always wanted to, but were, in the past, limited in terms of technology from realizing, as was also stated in the readings and videos for this week.

Examples:
Doing things the same way as in the classroom, but using new technology for the delivery of these:
1. When I was a student, my professors who were just beginning to use LMS would post scanned photocopies of book chapters and articles to Blackboard or Canvas, for us to then either download and print, or read on our screens, and then come to class ready to discuss.

2. When we suddenly had to move our course delivery from face-to-face, in the classroom, to Zoom in March 2020, I used the pdfs of our textbook’s chapters, shared my screen, and annotated student answers on the pdfs, the way I would have written on the overhead projector/document camera in the physical classroom.

Doing things differently, exploiting new technologies:

1. Polls, chat feature, and annotation in Zoom: I love using Zoom polls, the chat feature in Zoom, and the annotation tool in shared screen on Zoom in order to foster engagement from the whole class at once. Zoom allows the teacher to take a temperature check, and then share the distribution of responses to the poll. The chat allows students to respond simultaneously, or if they’re too shy to speak up, or if they can’t use their microphone. The annotation tool allows students to interact with a text all at once and brainstorm, something we can’t do easily in the physical classroom.

2. The ability to create interactive videos using h5p or panopto, to hold student attention and engagement--students have to respond to questions embedded in the video in order to continue watching the lesson. This is great because it keeps them engaged and focused, and rewards them for responding. Additionally, it’s a way for the students to check their comprehension when completing a lesson in their own time, in their own space, instead of in a scheduled classroom environment.

2. The ability to annotate students’ recordings with textual and audio recorded feedback, as shown in Figure 2.

3. Discussion threads: everyone can participate, and take time to participate (This was another affordance mentioned in the book chapter, that students noted appreciating having time to think to write their answers, or feeling like they all had a chance to participate)--this goes along with the ubiquitous nature of online course discussion threads.

References:
“Can Education Lead Technology? The PLATO Story”, https://coursera.org/share/11698fa9ecafb34abd5dd5f79ecfa057

Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2017). Conceptualizing e-learning. In E-learning ecologies (pp. 1-45). Routledge.