Published: 2020-02-13 07:19 |
Category: Technology | Tags: canvas, end, lms, online, quick, start, teaching
The LMS isn't perfect, but it's what we have.
We've gone through a sea change over the last four years. It started with opening Google Apps for all staff and students and then rolled into using Canvas as an LMS. I have mixed feelings about how heavily we're pouring into people using it, but I think I've landed on, "you have to start somewhere."
Questions I get now were not thinkable three years ago. The more staff get comfortable with the low-level functions (making assignments, using quizzes) the more questions I get that tend to revolve around achieving a goal rather than doing a thing. I have teachers moving toward questions like, "Can my students keep writing journals in Canvas?" (No.)
Discussions are getting better about how to do different things. There is more interest in creating opportunities for students to do more open-ended, meaningful work. I would love to be able to only use the LMS for collating information from other places. I want to make sure teachers are considering where work is done and how it is stored. I want students to be able to keep their own record of what they're doing.
It's a starting point. Canvas, with all of its flaws, has opened up several avenues of discussion that were not possible before we had it in place. I think the main danger is throwing all of the instructional chips into one place. Use the LMS as a launching point, not the end. Keep perspective on what meaningful work actually looks like.
The middle road seems to be a hard path to walk. There’s a weird pleasure in the false simplicity that comes from taking a polarized position. I did/do some mocking of the LMS. I’ve probably stepped over that line at times.
My revised goal is generally to make people some degree happier, save them a bit of time, improve an assignment some amount, and hope that good things will snowball from that.