LMO Wk 1 Comment 1: Jeff Kohl

I commented on Jeff Kohl's recent blog post which can be found here.

"LMO Overview"

"The CMS was originally developed as an educational e-learning platform for educational institutions. Typically, higher education facilities will use the CMS as a campus-wide database, which serves to connect, manage, and track their students through their duration at said institutions. The CMS cycles on a term basis, for example students at Full Sail University are placed into a CMS which allows the institution to manage courses, grades, library needs, and track plagiarism if necessary. CMS have proven successful in assisting administrators in running their institutions, as well as helping to ensure that the school is compliant with national accreditations and standards."



Jeff,

I think you hit the nail on the head with your assertion that VLEs represent a rethinking rather than an outright change in educational practice and approach.

As it turns out, much of our reading for this week has overlapped on topics and issues that I've been researching in my AR project. I've been working to identify technologies and methodologies to enhance student engagement within lecture environments, and VLEs have come up in several articles as valuable tools.

From personal experience, I am well aware that VLEs are often met with skepticism. However, in every article that I have researched, not one educator or researcher has explicitly suggested that any such system is a complete and perfect replacement for the traditional classroom experience. However, when carefully integrated into an educational setting with clear goals and assessments (as you also raised), they can certainly be powerful resources to support both student participation and engagement.

Reiterating the comments you posted from Morgan's (2003) assessment of CMS and LMS systems, in Alexandra Toedt's 2006 article, "What is a Learning Management System", she also pointed out the benefit of academic transparency. As further public and federal inquiry has been brought to bear in higher education within the last few years, I believe that transparency will likely become an even greater consideration in the continuing dialog of the implementation of VLEs. I speak with parents on a near daily basis who are wondering what their son or daughter is actually learning or doing in the classroom. Highlighting the value of VLEs from a standpoint of academic transparency in higher education might become more of an asset than any of us realize today.

Whether the issue stems from a tax analysis of public institutions, federal student loans in for-profit education, or the rising cost of higher education altogether, the window into the classroom afforded by such systems could be especially critical. Honestly, until this week, I hadn't really considered this particular aspect or value from Course Learning Systems. I appreciate your insight and again, I do think that such technologies will become even more ubiquitous as educators, administrators, and institutions alike further explore the benefits that such tools can provide. By nature, VLEs don't replace the classroom experience, but the transparency they can potentially provide in the educational process is but another benefit that others will take into consideration as we continue to discuss topics relating to educational reform and improving student success.