In their examination of the effects of LMS on university’s teaching and learning practices Coates, James & Baldwin (2005) argue that technologies are not pedagogically neutral, but through their very design, they influence and design teaching.

1. Have you been experiencing some of the pedagogically restricting effects of LMS in your own practice?  
2. Give the examples of the restrictive and the choice-widening LMS features, which affect the learners’ experiences.

The main restriction I have found in the use of the LMS that institution has adopted (Moodle) is its appearance. It is ‘clunky’, and my complaints mainly centre around the difficulty in making the site look the way I want it to. Students have become used to a certain aesthetic, such as those being used in social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc). The restriction I find most problematic is making a website for my courses that has an influence in student’s “buy-in”: I want them to actually use the site as much as possible.

Restrictions of LMS
The ‘top-down’ style of most LMS systems is also problematic. It would be great if students could comment, “Like”, etc on my current LMS but this is not available. Discussion boards, which can be restrictive and students are likely intimidated by the rigid structure (they don’t want to post anything that may not be a requirement, or may be marked, etc) of Discussion Boards. I used Schoology (which has a more “Facebook-like” interface) for a year but found students were not using it much, so went back to Moodle.

I will often refer students to the site for the online Google calendar (I have it displayed on my Biology page), for assignment due dates etc. Recently, I had a quiz in my class and two of my students had no idea there was a quiz! It had been on the Calendar for several weeks, and I had made mention of it in class… This tells me that not everyone is keeping up with the Calendar (which is also provided to them for incorportation into their devices… they can add the calendar to their iPhone’s native calendar app!).

Choice-Widening
I have hopes for the Google Classroom LMS, as it allows for a “Feed”-style homepage, and integrates well with Google Apps (like Google Drive). I just wish it had more options for adding things like Calendars, and delaying the posting of assignments (ie. post-dating assignments)… Although with the idea of ‘agile’ learning, maybe posting everything at once isn’t such a bad idea…? I do know that students at my school are particularly driven for academics, so if they see all the assignments posted at once, some of them may go for a 50-hour run and attempt to work far ahead of the class..

3. What are some of the advantages and dangers of the process of standardization of knowledge and instructional practices?

The danger of standardization, in general, is its restriction on the highly contextual nature of education. Using the internet as a prime mode of content delivery risks ‘deadening’ the material. Coates, James & Baldwin (2005) say that, “the textual nature of the internet may reinforce conceptions of teaching as the transmission of decontextualised and discrete pieces of information”. Students may feel that using a standardized model for education means that learning means accessing the conduit of information and downloading information. This removes the actual human beings involved in the transaction. It becomes a mechanical process.

Advantages would seem to lie mostly with the administration of such a system. Schools can promote the accountability to interested parties (government, parents, etc), and this will allow schools and school boards (in the eyes of some) more reliability and quality assurance. As Coates et al (2005) point out, “[m]any systems are owned by large publishing houses which are understandably interested in the development and distribution of copyrighted material.” The use of an LMS can be directly tied to corporate interest, thus focussing education into a commodity.

Cpiro notices a growing interest to more flexible and personalized learning designs, and sees it as a trend which is already replacing the “one-size-fits-all” principle of LMS architecture.

4. Would your conclusion be different from what Cpiro gets from his observations? Give examples to support your judgment.

Cpiro is supportive of personalized, self-directed ‘agile’ learning. I strongly support such a notion, but I don’t necessarily see the use of an LMS as counter to this philosophy. If designed in such a way that allows for maximum personalization, an LMS can actually provide the very kinds of personalization that Cpiro supports. If the design of an LMS takes into account learner’s individual wishes and concerns and is customized to suit the contextual nature of a class and its learners, allows for transition into mobility (the site can be viewed on multiple devices, for example), and, importantly, allows learners choices about how they will learn content (I try to use as many forms of media as possible when delivering content: slideshows, eBooks, animations, interactive websites, Ted Ed videos, discussion boards, Google Docs / Drawings / Sheets) I don’t see why the LMS will necessarily “die” the way Cpiro predicts.