Educause Quarterly Evaluates Course Management Systems |
| Jan 07 2009 |
Baltimore, MD June 2008 - A recent article in Educause Quarterly provided an insightful comparison of closed and open source Learning Management Systems and draws some excellent conclusions about the merits of an open source solution.
Toolbox or Trap? Course Management Systems and Pedagogy
The default design of commercial course management systems limits instructional creativity and pedagogical approaches, particularly for novice users
Creating an online class is a task of construction. A course management system (CMS) provides faculty with a set of tools, a kit to use as we build our classes. We want to construct classes according to our own pedagogy—what we know works with our learners and our teaching style. If we were building something tangible out of wood or metal, for instance, it would be limiting to let the tools in our toolbox determine what we construct and how we construct it. I wouldn't set out to build a Victorian dollhouse and switch to a modernist garden bench because I couldn't find the scroll saw. And yet this type of shift often happens when faculty encounter a CMS....
Last changed: Jan 14 2009 at 8:26 PM
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