Artefact #3 - Comparisons of LMS'

Artefact #3 - Comparisons of Learning Management Systems (LMS)

This Artefact represents the technical side of Instructional Design, where IT meets Education Development. It began in the MDDE620 course, where an assignment asked us to select a topic from a list and do a thorough analysis. I selected Moodle and Blackboard LMS’ and completed a comparison between the two to see which one offers more effective Educational delivery platforms.

Reflection

Due to this analysis, I learned the value of LMS’ and what they should contain and why (1.3). An LMS’ is a very important tool that Instructional Designers and other educational professionals use to deliver courses. LMS’ proved to be capable of providing the necessary options and features to make it useful and effective for all users (teachers and students).

This assignment was completed individually and required a lot of research and application of skills from my past work experiences. Prior to this assignment, I started working in the education field with Moodle and WebCT as the LMS’. Moodle was the new LMS replacing WebCT, as it was being shut down.  My role in this process was to help with the implementation, organization, structuring of all courses, as well as, training staff and faculty to use the new system. I was able to apply my experience with Moodle for this assignment. With Blackboard on the other hand, my experience related to working with it as a student during my Bachelors’ program as well as working with it as Teaching Assistant. The latter experience using the program to upload and edit, along with other teacher level privileges during the time of my exposure to Blackboard, I had little, to no knowledge of what distance education was all about and how an LMS fit into the picture of distance education (1.10, 5.2, 5.5).

Although I had quite a bit of experience with the two Learning Management Systems, I gained a lot of knowledge through the MDDE620 course. It taught us how to analyse different types of technologies for educational purposes, specifically distance education. A lot of my effort was involved in understanding the analysis process and then applying those skills to this particular assignment. It was definitely a difficult process as  I was previously expected to use a different one. Through the course and the assignment, one of the key lessons learned for me was how to make decisions on which technologies to select and use and which ones to set-aside. I decided which technology/tool to use based on characteristics, interaction capabilities, technical barriers, and skills of the users. Through the process of analyzing the educational technologies, I was able to compare them and identify the advantages and disadvantages. This same process can also be applied to any technology or tool, but for the most part, I didn’t have these skills yet or at the very least, they were not refined prior to taking this course and completing the assignment.

Additionally, another lesson learned involved other critical aspects, such as how to ask questions, how to gather users’ requirements for what they need, how to recognize the impact a technology would have on a person’s job role, etc (1.4, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4). Given that this was just one assignment and it didn’t involve a specific organization or a problem someone was trying to solve, I can’t say that I became an expert on how to gather users’ requirements, make a decision on which technology to select for those users, and what potential impact it may have had on their job roles. However, over time in my work environments, I began to apply these skills. One of the most powerful skills that I learned was to understand how information technologies can have positive and/or negative impacts a person’s job (1.10). This involved me asking a lot of questions to understand their daily tasks, what they were doing efficiently, how they could improve to be more efficient, and how technologies could help that person work more efficiently. This information came from gathering users’ requirements data (1.4, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4).

Another valuable lesson learned was through observing a professor facilitate a course all the way from Greece. This was a very fascinating concept and one that I feel opened my eyes to the power of distance education. I realized how distance education can be very effective for both the facilitator and student. Although I was aware of the data to support the success of distance education, experiencing it first-hand gave me first-hand experience on its effectiveness (3.3).