“Using Web technology primarily for the purposes of content distribution and secure communication between faculty and students in higher education is akin to using a desktop computer for a doorstop. A desktop can certainly work well for that purpose, but it falls far short of its intended use and its full potential.” (Mott and Wiley).

As a way to reflect on classes I plan to post after each session, or after key learning moments. This blog is then about the first session.

Key to this type of learning is the actual ‘real’ use of tools as a student-user. I recently completed a course on Higher Education at the University of Sydney, and what I most got out of the course was experiencing life as a student again – from enrolling to lectures/tutorials/assessments and of course using educational technology – as a student.

This MOOC is already having the same effect – we are using tools that we could use in class – trying them out and thinking about how we engage with them.

In the blackboard session I came across the idea that LMS (or CMS) were not always seen as a very useful tool. In my thinking was the concept that LMS provide a one stop shop and allow students and staff a single portal with a single login. There were ideas about giving students too many ‘clicks’ and loosing them into the internet and how hard it is to access multiple sites etc. 

“Then an answer seemed to appear: template-driven, plug-and-play, turnkey web applications that would empower all faculty, even the most mulish Luddites, to “put their courses online.”” (Gardener Campbell)

Campbell begins his article “A Personal Cyberinfrastructure” by discussing the early days of on-line (HTML etc), followed by LMS style all-for-one systems and finally web2 with twitter, youtube, blogger, facebook, wikipedia etc. Mott and Wiley point to research that strongly suggests that academics use LMSs for their adminstrative potentials – gradebook, assessments, document storage, announcements and email. While the learning focused elements of Blackboard, in this case, have very low take up (Mott and Wiley).

“Milligan observes, the CMS are “fundamentally a conservative technology … [for] managing groups, providing tools, and delivering content” (2006, 1).”(Mott and Wiley)

While these outcomes are useful they are teacher focused rather than student and suggest LMS are being used to save time.

LMS use was causing me issues. The university has stopped using Blackboard and they are in the middle of a closed trial of Moodle. My faculty has made their own LMS system that is based in web1 technologies and ideas. There is a drive to upload content onto the LMS and use it to deliver content, links, outlines, and perhaps run forums (although the environment is so terrible i doubt it will be used by students).

Having read and reflected I plan to use microblogging (twitter) and blogs (tumblr). These might be collected within the LMS but they will be run by the students and for the students. I hope to introduce students to the potential benefits of networks, research/idea sharing and collaboration through these online tools.