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Virginia Reischl and Janice T. Mercado Toro
A learning management system (LMS) is a software program that allows the administration of instructional materials through various educational activities, the tracking and reporting of student information, and the ability to facilitate and distribute communication. For educators, an LMS serves as a centralized place where they can post their learning resources and communicate with both parents and students. Currently, the new LMS programs are becoming more student-oriented and are fostering more social and collaborative learning (Lonn & Teasley, 2009; Simba Information, 2011).
Historically, learning management systems were designed for organizations to use for in-house compliance training. The LMS program license would be purchased and the company/organization would install the system on their own servers and network to purchase and install the programs. In addition to the purchase of the LMS, many offer a “software as a service (SaaS) with hosting provided by the vendor” (Lin, 2015). Since the early 1990s, the proliferation of online learning and the concept of e-learning caused the industry to redesign and enhance LMS products. As of fall 2016, “the higher education market in U.S. list the top three LMS installations as Blackboard (33%), Moodle (19%) and Canvas (17%). The same three systems lead in terms of the number of students enrolled, but in a different order: Blackboard (45%), Canvas (24%), Moodle (17%)” (4th Annual LMS update, 2016).
In addition to the aforementioned benefits, school districts and school sites utilize learning management systems as the “infrastructure that delivers and manages instructional content, identifies and assesses individual and organizational learning or training goals, tracks the progress towards meeting those goals, and collects and presents data for supervising the learning process of an organization as a whole” (Watson & Watson, 2007, p.28). However, if your school or district has not adopted an LMS, there are still options available. You may choose to operate your course by using an LMS like Schoology, Jupiter Ed, Engrade, Canvas, or Google Classroom. Many school districts have implemented grade books that mimic the LMS grade book, but lack the accessibility in linking and hyperlinking to the array of assessment tools that they use regularly. The systems previously mentioned allow for you to run your course virtually as minimally or involved as you would like, and are tailored to accommodate all levels of technology users. The experienced or novice teacher may manipulate the LMS in a way that suits the needs of their students and their course design.
This chapter defines and explores the use of learning management systems that effectively support teachers in making the most of their instructional time. This is followed by a personal narrative from a Special Education teacher who uses a district-provided learning management system to support her students’ indepe