choosing an lms

when choosing an L.

M s.

It totally depends on your organization.

But I think that right now what we're looking for

is some kind of flexibility, the ability to adapt to

our new circumstances, which is going to include a lot

of virtual mobile e learning needs as well as ways

to make those kind of social and collaborative the three

that I'm looking at our blackboard because it's what Tri

County Technical College currently uses.

And that's where I am Canvas, which is used by

Clemson and is often considered, uh, modern version, maybe like

a step up and model, which is an open source,

one that I have a friend who has experience with.

And I'm just curious about how the open source one

would compare to the other two main contenders.

So Blackboard is designed for education and for business.

Um, and its biggest thing is that it could be

customized to your organization.

Um, so they're all cloud based.

They all have the ability to upload download stuff from

the cloud.

Um, but blackboard also, you can do it on premise,

and it has managed hosting.

So the biggest thing with that is it means for

Tri County.

It integrates with R S I s our student information

system. We can have all of that content and it

can integrate seamlessly with blackboard, and we need them to

communicate. Um e it also integrates with dropbox, uh, marks

off one drive, which we also use.

So just being able to get that information from different

places is really big with us for blackboard, Okay, for

canvas, it's for education on Lee and, um as faras

integration goes, it uses a nap center, and it says

it's like a library of all the ones that you

need all the tools and that you can just install

them just with a one click.

Um, the only problem I have with this one is

it said that it does not have single sign on

capability because you are adding in that extra step.

So to me, I think about adding in all those

different ones, and that's a lot of different sign ins.

Um, so I don't know if that would work very

well for me or not, Um, for model is the

same way it uses separate APS for everything.

So if you want analytics, you have to have Zulu

analytics. If you want Web conferencing, you have to have

big blue button.

If you want your Google APS integrated, there's one for

that, um, including audio and video recording, which I think

is huge right now, we all need the capability to

have these videos, um, video, audio recordings and with our

new content.

Um, and so for model, you would have to use

poodle, um, in addition to things like, you know, having

to think about Oh, do I need to put turn

it in on here so that it can check for

plagiarism? You know, just having to get all the things

that you need in little individual threads, I think would

be cumbersome.

Um, but it can be done.

I guess once it's set up, then you're set up

as far as content.

I think content is a big thing.

We're gonna look at it from teacher and student.

So for blackboard, the initial startup is just hard.

It's cumbersome is it's bulky.

Um, it has a big learning curve there.

Um, all of your resource is air.

There. It has courses.

And then you go down to assessments and create a

new assessment and you do this.

But you are having to build something from the ground

up still, Um, like, if I want to add in

like you have to add in a discussion board or

with different threads, If you want the different threads on

there and journal page, and if you want to add

a discussion group that's just for the classroom, then you're

piecing it all together.

The good part about that is you could make it

very customized, but again, it's that initial set up kind

of time.

Um, they did add an open content share within the

organization as far as content goes, and they have optimized

it for mobile canvas, of course, has canvas on mobile,

so you could take entire courses online.

Um, they also have that more kind of maybe iconographic

intuitive interface.

It's a little less, um, words and a lot more

pictures, and also regardless of whether you get the free

tri ALS or the open source version, it comes with

built in content.

So I think that that's nice that you can go

ahead and pull something and immediately, um, that you don't

start with nothing but what you are starting with is

probably maybe a little bit more generic.

As faras model goes, you're starting with nothing.

But the good part is that teachers can choose their

own content and activities.

So you have that autonomy to build whatever you want

and added in there there are limitations there.

Um, that is double edged because, of course, you start

with nothing.

Um, but it is an open source content.

So there are the chances that you could find a

lot of of good things that you can use based

off of others on Boodle does have its own dedicated

app. So again, with the mobile, I think that these

air new things to be looking at and all three

have the capability but canvas model specifically have their own

dedicated out training and support.

They all have a community forum.

They all do.

F a qs, um, on the web.

Blackboard has customized program for school.

So we have a rep.

Um, so we can we can ask this person questions

and they work with us one on one when we

have individual things come up.

I had one come up for mine and he's been

talking to the blackboard rep saying, How do we get

people to enroll if that's not really a course?

And, um, they also have behind the blackboard support resource

is so they have You can do downloads.

You could do tutorials.

Um, they also have phone support.

Um, they do not have email.

Um, I don't know if our support person has been

just talking to our rep on the phone.

Well, im without the email component.

But, I mean, there isn't an email officially for Blackboard

to help with that, you would have to go directly.

Okay, I hope so.

I think I went over that without having my picture

up. So customers programs behind the scenes kind of stuff.

And no email for canvas.

Um, they have a Web page of answers on gyu

conjoined community groups.

So that's kind of this user base sort of things

where they can share idea.

It does have phone, and it has email.

Um, and they also have something called in structure con,

where you can learn Maura about canvas and about kind

of educational technology is a little more generic there, but

the idea that they have phone and email there is

a huge plus versus model, which is totally kind of

user generated.

They have a community site.

You do have designated model partners.

Um, and they also host user conferences called model moots

for networking and learning.

But there is no direct support contact.

Uh huh.

That being said, my friend who was the professor, said

that she was talking with someone about how she can

give students feedback using using, like, a video, like they

settle down on grammar issues and dividing up parts of

a sentence.

And she said, How can I show them this?

I don't just want to circle it and point it

wrong. How can I explain it as we go?

And they had to work out something where they could

get the video.

Eso I'm not sure who she talked to about that,

if that was like a community member.

Um, but according to research, they don't have that kind

of support.

But obviously, maybe they support one another, things that set

them apart to me.

Um, Blackboard has a lot of upgrades.

They have the ultra experience now, which is they have

learning analytics features now that have on auto notification.

If they're failing the class.

I think that's big.

It has the call to action.

Um, and it has little things like that.

Well, they added open content, blackboard, open content.

Um, to find resource is without importing or exporting, and

the users can copyright that information.

Then they have little things like more visible due dates.

They had a new interface where you couldn't see the

whole title, and now you know, you can expand it

out. So things there named similarly, it wouldn't be cut

off where you be confused, Which to me says that

they have kind of three user experience in mind.

Um, so they're kind of keeping up with the needs,

which is important for that flexibility.

Canvas is big.

Thing is they have the ark platform, which is, um,

it's basically like a flip grid.

You can add audio and video, you can respond back

to each other and start these conversations.

I think that's nice and new and cutting edge as

faras things that we might need.

And they also have a lot on this student side

of it where they have, uh, they have polls that

you can use without using a clicker.

And then for?

For our younger students, they have the canvas parent so

the parents can see upcoming and past assignments, and they

concede grades.

So there's no more.

Well, I didn't know that they were failing.

Like, I think that's brilliant.

Um, in addition, Thio for the teacher side of it,

they have a speed greater app.

Um, where a teacher can see, um, all the student

submissions give feedback anti like all on one page.

And, um, they had something called mastery grade book that

I thought was interesting for people that have teaching to

the test where it's assessing outcomes and measuring learning based

on standards based grading.

So to me, if they have certain things that you

know, um, it's kind of interesting that canvas has tailored

to this mastery grade book that measures those specific things

and says, You know, are you making what you have

to make as far as mood ALS, they are the

only ones that had any kind of Gamification element.

Um, I think that it's content authoring tools.

Probably help with that.

The idea that the teachers make it, they're gonna want

to make it engaging, and they give them the tools

to do that.

So they have a quiz venture for the game ification

of quizzes and tests.

And they have something called Level Up, which is a

module that gives, like, progressive checkpoints, which is just that,

you know, semblance of Gamification gives him some goals, many

goals to keep moving through.

Um, I really liked model.

For that reason.

Yeah, some of the issues were sometimes blackboard pages wouldn't

load correctly.

Um, sometimes that there's that a difficult initial start up

in the learning curve.

Um, I told you a little bit about my experience

there with creating stuff.

Um, canvas has limited customization, They said.

Quiz buildings kind of tedious.

And, um, sometimes the instructions could be sort of hard

to find models the same way.

It's so hard to find that that support structure there

and you're kind of doing everything from scratch and building

it up also has limitations on storage.

You can only do users up to like 500 users.

The free one has ads.

Um, there's storage space considerations off there, So if you're

a large organization or not, be able to use move

so summary today, flexibility could mean different things.

It could mean upgrades.

Like all the ones on blackboard.

It could mean the integration of APS.

Because when as new aps come out, then you know,

canvas and model are in position to just click these

things, um, into your lessons.

Although there might be some wait time there with how

long they're going to say, Okay, let's integrate that, um

and also was the customer support for these new and

changing needs.

You know, we need to be able to do it

quickly, um, and easily, as easily as possible.

Eso We need our support.

A SZ faras mobile.

You have to be optimized.

Dedicated app, whatever.

You got to be ready to go Mobile, um, audiovisual

videos. How how that's built into the content and how

easily that's managed.

Um and then the content creation and the user experience.

I mean, there's long learning curves for some of them,

but the others or maybe more generic.

Um, it depends on what you already have.

Um, as faras what you're trying to use if you

really want to get into Gamification.

If you really want thio, start from the ground up

and then you want to build this fantastic program.

Then you have a different choice than if you have

these legacy, um, content that you're bringing in.

Um, I guess that's all.

Flexibility supported Mobile, so

choosing an lms

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