The LMS rubric assignment allowed me to gain a greater understanding of the decisions that organizations and institutions must make regarding Learning Management Systems. The members of my group were great to work with, because everyone was flexible with meeting times and completed their work by our self-imposed deadlines. I felt that the assignment was equitably divided between our five members and was done at the same level of quality by all.
None of us had much experience in making this type of decision, so we chose to use each of the components of Bates’ SECTIONS model to formulate our rubric. We weren’t sure if our organization BCcampus would need to consider areas such as costs and teaching functions but decided that, since they would make a choice that would impact administration, teachers, support staff and students, they should examine all aspects and functions of the two LMSs they were considering. The rubric format forced us to look closely at each of the eight categories and to narrow them down to the most important and critical ideas of each one, which helped us create a comprehensive, yet succinct selection tool.
Personally, I felt it was difficult to connect this assignment to my current working environment in an elementary school. While I can apply elements of the SECTIONS model, such as students, ease of use and teaching functions, to making decisions about which technologies, programs or devices best fit my students’ needs, I have never done so in the context of a learning management system. I feel like Chickering and Ehrmann’s (1987) Seven Principles are better criteria for technology and media selection at the elementary level, since they are more geared towards pedagogy and teaching and learning strategies.