Shopping for a Learning Management System (LMS)

by Maria Pineda

Primary and secondary schools in the Philippines were disrupted by the Covid19 pandemic and no formal closures of the school calendar happened this 2020. Colleges and universities were caught off guard and were not ready for this situation. Most of this schools and education institutions resorted to using the email, Facebook and meeting tools.

Many questions thrive among the schools, both private and public– can we continue delivery of instruction through online? Are we ready or can we be ready on time for the next school opening? Will online learning work? How do we address the needs of the teachers, the students and the parents? Can we sustain this? How about the infrastructure needed? What equipment can we provide our school members? And what online learning delivery platform should we use? These are just a few of the questions. 

For decision-makers in schools, colleges, universities or even training centers, you need to review the anatomy of your educational delivery and your school culture. Understanding the type of institution you are allows you to look for the features that will fit your requirements.  Here are some questions (not complete)  you need to ask your team:

Teachers

Are your teachers inclined to prepare their own lessons and activities? Are they given autonomy to design various cognitive tasks among their classes? Or on the other hand, do your teachers prefer to have ready-made lessons to be delivered? Does the school prefer to invest on advanced learning materials particularly on STEM and languages? Are your teachers prepared to go through retooling to become effective in teaching online? Are your teachers ready to change hats even at home to cope to the demands of teaching from home?

Students

Do you envision your students becoming self-regulated and independent in managing their own learning?

Are you inclined to having many collaborative activities among your students or learners? Do you pair them? Do you group them? Is teamwork part of the overall development?

Do you like having venues of communication skills development for the student?

For the Parents

Do you regularly involve the parents in the policies and decisions in the school? Are the parents informed of the status of their children’s performance?

Principals

Do you prefer to have regular reports on the student and teacher’s performance? Are you a hands-on leader who prefers to sit inside the classroom to observe? Do you like to hand-hold the parents on what is happening in your campus?

If your answer is yes in any of those questions, you have to ensure that the LMS you will choose has the capability to address your priority service task. So here is a quick guide of what some of the LMSs like Schoology, Canvas, Edmodo, Google Classroom and Moodle has to offer. 

LMS Comparison ver May2020 – LMS Features (1)

Look into your skill set and task requirements over the pricing.

*more articles and discussions to come as I aim to assist school leaders during this pandemic time.