Learning Management Systems

I completed high school over a decade ago when assignments were submitted hand written and in order to complete research for that assignment you had to physically go to the library, open a book and hand write notes! Something that is virtually unheard of these days.

One of the main reasons I never continued on to university after I completed high school was that the idea of going to a huge university campus and orientating my way around to find lecture rooms and the library, etc simply intimidated me. Another was that I wanted to be working and making money, not spending all my time in lectures and tutorials. When I began university last year I was amazed and delighted to see how much things had changed. All my class information was available for me through Blackboard (which is now Moodle) and I could access it whenever and wherever was convenient for me. These types of systems are invaluable to students like myself. At the beginning of last year I unexpectedly fell pregnant with my second child and I was afraid that I would not be able to continue studying this year with a new born baby.

Through the use of the LMS (Moodle) this has not been the case. I have managed to fit in studying full time, and keeping track of my family. If there were no LMS there is no way I could have continued studying , spending the majority of my week in a lecture room, expecting my baby to either fend for himself or to keep quiet in the corner.

There are more and more young people out there who, for one reason or another, simply cannot physically be present in class every day. For some it may be a simple as they live too far away from the closest school. Others may need to support themselves or their families through working, and others may not be well enough to attend class every day. For these students an LMS would be invaluable. They could keep up to date with the work that was needed, keep in contact with their peers and teachers, even work collaboratively through links to wikis and blogs. This type of system also encourages students to take responsibility for their learning as they are the ones who decide when, where and what they want to study, and this in turn encourages life-long-learning. I believe that Learning Management Systems are the classrooms of the future. Within my subject areas, Learning Management Systems would be extremely useful, especially within Film and Television. As this is a subject which requires a great amount of personal time to create and produce productions, watch and analyse films, and learn the content in order to complete tasks. An LMS would allow students to access information and collaborate about productions at convenient times to themselves. Trying to achieve continuity between classes when you are trying to analyse a film can be especially challenging. With an LMS, the film could be uploaded for students’ to access at home and they could watch it all in one go. There could be review questions to get students to think about the film while it was fresh in their minds, and a discussion board or wiki where students could add their thoughts or analysis of the film. The LMS could also contain all sorts of technical information about the film which students cold refer to throughout their analysis.