Toolbox or Trap? Course Management Systems and Pedagogy
“The default design of commercial course management systems limits instructional creativity and pedagogical approaches, particularly for novice users.” (Lane (2008) p 4). This article discussed the different issues that creating online courses have created with the management systems and pedagogy. Lane discusses the toolbox, trap, and the wrong tools that novice and experienced online instructors experience.
When discussing the toolbox, it is noted that the applications within the CMS are not always designed to have innovative teaching styles. The toolbox that is offered in most systems is set up so that the instructors just put their information into the predesigned templates. With this, the schedules are already set up to be organized by concept not by week or days, this is not how many instructors think which is a complaint that Lane has with these types of systems.
The trap is several of these have a pre-set pedagogy that is usually easy to use. Within the constructivist pedagogy the technologies that are used with Web 2.0 applications are much richer and include more social interaction and self-assessment.
What the designers of the courses need to realize however that not all instructors are “webheads.” This is because for some of the instructors do not have the tools and the systems are set up with the wrong tools. Even after working with some of the technology tools, some of the faculty still are unsure of how to work the technology in order to do what they want rather than what the technology can do in order to enhance their teaching.
Lane suggests that CMS need to be designed so that more voice instructors can look at the options and create things more freely. She also suggests that students had more complaints with courses that required more mouse work. By using some of the newer technologies such as Moodle, Joomla, and Wikispaces, the more novice instructors can create courses with more options.
Lane, Lisa (2008).Toolbox or trap. Course management systems and pedagogy. Educase Quarterly