Understanding an LMS

7/29/2019 Understanding an LMS

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ELT article published by Prof. Jonathan Acua at http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/

Understanding an LMS

Whether one is teaching an online course or some sort of blended class, it

is important to understand the learning management system [LMS] that

one s higher education institution is using. The reason for this

understanding is to envision what one is allowed to do within the VLE

platform to help students achieve the course learning goals and objectives.

Furthermore, our understanding of the LMS can also help us decide on the

Web 2.0 tools that can be also used within or outside the platform to boost

student acquisition and application of knowledge.

At Universidad Latina in Costa Rica, for instance , we currently use a Moodle

platform christened Campus Virtual . Although it is still on beta stage,

faculty members can perform a lot of different learning tasks with students.

Among the Campus features, it allows professors to keep track of student


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attendance, grades, and homework submission. For these tasks teacher s

have a great number of tools that have been added to the Moodle

platform, such as forums, chats, surveys, wikis, and the like. The only one

inconvenience is that there are no ongoing training sessions to empower

faculty in the use, virtues, and potentials of the LMS. As a consequence,

the Moodle platform is from my point of view- underused.

Universidad Latinas LMS is intended to help our students to achieve their

learning goals satisfactorily with their professors assistance. From my

personal pool of experiences with the system, the Moodle platform has

been used to boost student critical thinking and autonomous learning,

something that at times does not fully happen in class. In the F2F

environment, students refrain themselves from expressing their ideas or

concerns. However, within the LMS learners are able to mull over the class

content, reflect upon learning tasks, and finally produce some sort of

discussion, assignment, or reflection connected to the course content and

objectives. For me, this is one of the greatest pluses the system offers

users. With this system students have regained their voices that cannot be

usually heard in class time.

When one thinks of the Web 2.0 tools that can best fit ones current

teaching conditions, it is necessary to bear in mind what the purpose is andthe technology trend students are in. In my case, with ELT students, we

have come to use Twitter to create a community of practice especially

aiming at those who are in their teaching practicum or taking the last


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courses in the major. Additionally, to be much more updated with trend

and the current development in ELT, I have encouraged students to use

www.delicious.com to keep track of Websites that can be used in or for

their teaching. Besides, www.scoop.it is another sort of booking marking

service where faculty and learners can curate a topic by adding theme-

related links which are nicely displayed, better than a regular wiki. And

www.paper.li is another option in my particular teaching ELT scenario. This

other site allows students and professors to create a newspaper -like site

that can collect filtered ELT, ESL, EFL or educational information via social

media, such as facebook or Twitter.

To sum up, a thorough comprehension of one s educational institution s

LMS can provide faculty members a clear vision of what a blended or 100%

online course requires to fully allow learners to fulfill knowledge-acquiring

tasks. No LMS is perfect, but its understanding can empower instructors to

modify his/her teaching to create memorable learning experiences for

students that will have a long-lasting effect on them.

To fully develop and comprehend this teaching issue, its advisable to

research and expand these areas:
http://www.delicious.com/http://www.delicious.com/http://www.scoop.it/http://www.scoop.it/http://www.paper.li/http://www.paper.li/http://www.paper.li/http://www.scoop.it/http://www.delicious.com/


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1 Types of LMS

2 Web 2.0 tools for learning

3 Assessing LMS s features

4 Uses of LMS s features for learning

5 Faculty s LMS empowerment

Professor Jonathan Acua-Solano

ELT Instructor & Trainer based in Costa Rica

NCTE - Costa Rica Affiliate

Resource Teacher at CCCN

Senior ELT Professor at Universidad Latina

Freelance ELT Consultant four OUP in Central America

For further comments or suggestions, reach me at:

@jonacuso Twitter

[email protected] Gmail

Other blogs and sites I often write for my students at the university are:

1. Pronunciation 1 2. Re adding Skills 1

3. Pronunciation 2 4. Computering Applications in

Education
http://www.facebook.com/pages/NCTE-Costa-Rica-Official-Site/467960803216922http://centrocultural.cr/http://centrocultural.cr/http://centrocultural.cr/http://ulatina.ac.cr/http://ulatina.ac.cr/http://ulatina.ac.cr/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://bin-02.blogspot.com/http://bin-02.blogspot.com/http://bin-04.blogspot.com/http://bin-04.blogspot.com/http://bin-06.blogspot.com/http://bin-06.blogspot.com/https://sites.google.com/site/studio54onlineradio/https://sites.google.com/site/studio54onlineradio/https://sites.google.com/site/studio54onlineradio/https://sites.google.com/site/studio54onlineradio/http://bin-06.blogspot.com/http://bin-04.blogspot.com/http://bin-02.blogspot.com/mailto:[email protected]://ulatina.ac.cr/http://centrocultural.cr/http://www.facebook.com/pages/NCTE-Costa-Rica-Official-Site/467960803216922


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Get new ELT material and ideas by visiting my curated topics onhttp://paper.li/ and http://scoop.it/

TEFL Daily English Language Teaching Journal

ELT Daily Phonemics Daily

The Linguists: Linguistics News

Published on September 18, 2013

Batson, Trent (04/15/2009) Why is Web 2.0 Important to Higher

Education? Retrieved from

http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2009/04/15/Why-Web-2.0-is-

Important-to-Higher-Education.aspx?Page=1
http://paper.li/http://paper.li/http://scoop.it/http://scoop.it/http://scoop.it/http://paper.li/jonacuso/1318117839http://www.scoop.it/t/english-languate-teachinghttp://paper.li/jonacuso/1318118121http://paper.li/jonacuso/1318002929http://paper.li/jonacuso/1330965370http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2009/04/15/Why-Web-2.0-is-Important-to-Higher-Education.aspx?Page=1http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2009/04/15/Why-Web-2.0-is-Important-to-Higher-Education.aspx?Page=1http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2009/04/15/Why-Web-2.0-is-Important-to-Higher-Education.aspx?Page=1http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2009/04/15/Why-Web-2.0-is-Important-to-Higher-Education.aspx?Page=1http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2009/04/15/Why-Web-2.0-is-Important-to-Higher-Education.aspx?Page=1http://paper.li/jonacuso/1330965370http://paper.li/jonacuso/1318002929http://paper.li/jonacuso/1318118121http://www.scoop.it/t/english-languate-teachinghttp://paper.li/jonacuso/1318117839http://scoop.it/http://paper.li/

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Understanding an LMS