Thursday, July 28, 2011

Blog Post #6 - LMS Comparison

https://sites.google.com/a/unisa.it/coffee-soft/

I was drawn to the LMS CoFFEE by its crafty description to "Plan, moderate and evaluate collaborative activities in a digital classroom using various tools, for brainstorming, mind mapping, voting and more."  It includes tools such as Categorized Discussions (similar to different links to a discussion board post) though it has a useful AIM layout where you can see the conversation without clicking on links.  Another tool that I thought was interesting was its Graphical Tool which illustrates the separate points supporting and arguing against a prompted discussion.  However, upon further investigation of this LMS, I think that it would be very difficult to master.  Take a look at this video to see if you can wrap your head around it...

CoFFEE has a very confusing interface, both on its webpage and the software, which turned me off immediately.  I also do not like that you have to download it to your computer either.  Call me progressive, but I'd rather type in a username and password than download software onto my computer.  This is not an LMS that I want to spend time learning because it can really only be used as a resource for discussion and I think that many LMS offer this tool in addition to many other useful applications.

Now on to bigger and better things!  


Schoology is described as "a free web-based learning management system (LMS) built on a social network. Schoology leverages the familiarity of popular social media tools to improve communication and collaboration." Check out this site to see what this LMS has to offer.

It is designed much like the popular Facebook interface with the profile picture in the left hand corner, events (or assignments due) on the right hand side, and several tabs located on the left to navigate the sight.  This setup can be engaging for students because most of them are already so familiar with it.  Teachers and students can post on the class's wall anything from important announcements to sharing resources such as pictures and videos relevant to the class. There is a space for live discussions too.  Teachers can also use this LMS to log grades, keep attendance, create online assessments, and more!  The broad range of resources on Schoology makes it so much more useful than CoFFEE. I would use this LMS to keep students up-to-date on upcoming assignments, as a mode for discussion outside the classroom, as a different mode of assigning homework, and to use as a tool outside the classroom to further engage students in the class. There is even an iPhone App for this program! Check out this video to discover more about this LMS:


Youtube.com


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3 comments:

  1. SueSturm40July 31, 2011 at 6:50 PM

    I agree with you that CoFFEE seems difficult to use and offers little more than a discussion forum. Schoology, on the other hand, was great! Thanks for the demo video, it really showed all that the LMS has to offer. Being so Facebook-like, this tool would undoubtedly catch on quickly with young learners. I like how everything is streamlined into easy-to-find locations, such as the academic feed and the due date calendar on the right. This seems much more kid-friendly and would be much more easy and relevant than CoFFEE. Thanks!

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  2. JasonAugust 1, 2011 at 1:58 AM

    You want a bad LMS? Look at my post on EDU 2.0. Haiku seemed to me like a really good one too. I really like the Schoology tool though. That's definitely one I'll have to look at more.

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  3. Matt CoiaAugust 1, 2011 at 10:13 PM

    After looking at Schoology again recently, I like it better than when I used it a few months ago. I think many of the major players in the LMS market are adapting their products quickly to try to capture as much of the market as possible. I still wonder how they do all this for free.

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