Thompson also suggests that when schools train teachers on using the LMS, they combine the training with the implementation process, so that as a teacher learns how to create a course online, he or she is actually creating the course to be taught.
“A lot of times we see a trainer come in, train the staff, and leave, and what [the teachers] created in training is just busy work,” Thompson explains. “So we created a graduate-level course, and it taught teachers how to use Moodle in their class, combining the pedagogy with the technology. They had to create discussion boards, post their content—all the [online aspects] that they were actually using in class—so by the time they were finished with the course, they were ready to begin teaching with it. That really moved the implementation along.”
When considering an LMS, think about the long term, says Sara Weston, curriculum director of the Open High School, a public charter school in Utah.
“What I found was, all the add-ons and bells and whistles that were being developed, they were being developed for the big guys like Blackboard and Moodle,” she says. “I didn’t want to hitch our star to a small company. You need to be able to respond quickly.”
Weston said the Open High School went with a proprietary model for a year, then switched to Moodle. She suggests that schools considering Moodle not be put off by the “blah-ness” of Moodle’s visual aspect.
“I was so turned off by Moodle, visually. But if I had known from the beginning all the ‘skinning’ you can do, I would have seen the features and not the visuals,” she says. “What things look like really matter. If I had given my students the bare-bones, regular Moodle, they would have been really turned off.”
Weston also researched Sakai, but her impression was that it was geared more toward postsecondary education. “Moodle seemed more accessible to the K-12 market,” she says.
Be aware that, in the end, the system is not going to be used exactly as you envision it, says Dan Wray, executive director with Clark County, Nev., School District’s technology division.
“Teachers and students will find uses that you didn’t envision,” says Wray. “And the ones that you were sure they would use, they’ll look at you and say, ‘Why?’”
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