This link has been bookmarked by 29 people . It was first bookmarked on 08 May 2008, by Cheri Toledo.
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09 Mar 09
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02 Mar 09
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25 Nov 08
Nick BunyanAre vle's limiting pedagogical development?
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30 Oct 08
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how the design and use of a CMS affects pedagogy, and instructors rarely discuss how a CMS affects their teaching. With the emergence of new learning management systems and virtual learning environments based on alternative pedagogy, and the advent of Web 2.0 applications such as blogs, wikis, and social networking, one thing has become clear: the standardized nature of integrated commercial systems is limiting pedagogy.
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As products marketed to institutions to help them integrate resources, they are designed along the lines of inventory control or commercial enterprise applications. Decisions about which learning software to use on campus are often made by campus technologists and administrators rather than faculty
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Because their purpose is to manage resources (content, class enrollments, assessments), the applications are based on managerial and administrative tasks centered on instructor efficiency: gradebook, test creation, threaded discussion, rosters, and instructor-student messages. Indeed, many instructors never move beyond these basic uses, despite the many interactive features course management systems now offer. Why?
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The preset organization encourages novice instructors to "plug in" their content under the appropriate category instead of effectively translating their individual teaching styles into an online environment.
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The focus on presentation (written documents to read), complemented by basic "discussion" input from students, is based on traditional lecture, review, and test pedagogy. This orientation is very different from the development of knowledge through a constructivist, learner-centered, or inquiry-based approach,
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In constructivist pedagogy, the instructor's role is to provide a rich learning environment, which often includes extensive social interaction, self-assessment, and independent projects.
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03 Oct 08
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22 Sep 08
Malcolm MurrayDoes your choice of LE/CMS dictate your pedagogic approaches?
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24 Aug 08
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If we were building something tangible out of wood or metal, for instance, it would be silly let the tools in our toolbox determine what we construct and how we construct it. I wouldn't set out to build a Victorian dollhouse and switch to a modernist garden bench because I couldn't find the scroll saw. And yet this type of shift often happens when faculty encounter a CMS.
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Campuses have adopted these programs on a wide scale, yet few studies have looked at how the design and use of a CMS affects pedagogy, and instructors rarely discuss how a CMS affects their teaching.
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Decisions about which learning software to use on campus are often made by campus technologists and administrators rather than faculty.
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The construction of the course syllabus, a natural beginning point for most instructors, is a good example of how the software imposes limitations. When they first enter a CMS, new instructors see the default buttons of the course menu, which are based on type rather than purpose: Announcements, Course Content, Discussion, even Syllabus.
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The default organization of the CMS forces them to think in terms of content types instead, breaking the natural structure of the semester.
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In addition to a counterintuitive organizational scheme, integrated commercial systems have a built-in pedagogy, evident in the easiest-to-use, most accessible features. The focus on presentation (written documents to read), complemented by basic "discussion" input from students, is based on traditional lecture, review, and test pedagogy. This orientation is very different from the development of knowledge through a constructivist, learner-centered, or inquiry-based approach, which a number of faculty use successfully in the classroom.
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But at the novice level, the system simply does not encourage such customization. To be able to modify the CMS to employ alternative teaching methods, instructors must have a well-developed sense of what is possible in the online environment before approaching the course design process—a perspective many do not have when they first start teaching online. When presented with a list of options, most people typically choose one option rather than question the list itself.
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Most faculty do not use the web either extensively or intensively in their own work, and those who aren't "into technology" will quickly find themselves overwhelmed by a CMS.
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Even after several years of working with a CMS, faculty requests for help tend to focus on what the technology can do rather than how their teaching and learning goals can be achieved.
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An instructor seeking an easy way to post word-processed documents, enter grades, receive papers and assignments through a digital dropbox, and run a traditional threaded discussion board will tend to show great satisfaction with using a CMS.4 Those who tax the system more, and use the most complex features, show lower levels of satisfaction. In addition, after spending months creating material and quizzes in a proprietary system, faculty rightly panic at the idea of "moving everything" to another system. The big systems simply do not allow for easy export, and no one wants to do all that work over again. It is much easier to simply declare satisfaction with things the way they are.
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There are, of course, alternatives to these hampering systems, and you don't have to be a programmer or Internet expert to use them.
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Web 2.0 applications that encourage social construction of knowledge (Wikispaces, BubbleShare, Ning) are freely available and may provide more creative instructors with better options than any LMS currently available. Such programs make possible the creation of one's own mini-CMS, cobbled together out of programs that fit with the instructor's methodology. In these cases, pedagogy comes first—the tools can be used to build the courses we want to teach.
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18 Jul 08
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10 Jul 08
Linda WallaceThe default design of commercial course management systems limits instructional creativity and pedagogical approaches, particularly for novice users.
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26 Jun 08
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In addition to a counterintuitive organizational scheme, integrated commercial systems have a built-in pedagogy, evident in the easiest-to-use, most accessible features. The focus on presentation (written documents to read), complemented by basic "discussion" input from students, is based on traditional lecture, review, and test pedagogy. This orientation is very different from the development of knowledge through a constructivist, learner-centered, or inquiry-based approach, which a number of faculty use successfully in the classroom
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applications that encourage social construction of knowledge (Wikispaces, BubbleShare, Ning) are freely available and may provide more creative instructors with better options than any LMS currently available
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. Such programs make possible the creation of one's own mini-CMS, cobbled together out of programs that fit with the instructor's methodology. In these cases, pedagogy comes first
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22 May 08
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10 May 08
Rudy Garns"The default design of commercial course management systems limits instructional creativity and pedagogical approaches, particularly for novice users" (EDUCAUSE Quarterly) | EDUCAUSE CONNECT
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09 May 08
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08 May 08
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Learning management systems designed with a more constructivist pedagogy in mind such as Moodle, Joomla, or Drupal make it possible for a novice instructor to explore pedagogical options more freely.
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