In “Digital Teaching Platforms in the Spectrum of Educational Technologies” by John Richards and Joseph Walters (in Digital Teaching Platforms: Customizing Classroom Learning for Each Student edited by Chris Dede and John Richards) there is an excellent discussion of different types of Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Digital Teaching Platforms (DTP). I have one quibble with it though.
They list LMS systems as not providing the following "Pedagogical Support Tools":
- Curriculum allows open response
- Enables problem solving, creativity, etc.
- Facilitates large & small-group work
- Tools for collaboration and sharing
Hang on a minute. I'm not buying this. Let’s take Moodle as an example. The assessment tools in Moodle certainly include open response questions. They support rubrics and even support students evaluating each others’ work. Subgroups can be used to support small and large group work. Collaboration tools include discussion boards, wikis, chat systems and sometimes video conferencing. None of these are new features.
I might give them "enables problem solving, creativity, etc." That has to come from the content and typically LMS systems do not include content; it has to be loaded from elsewhere. Certainly a LMS can be used support that type of problem solving content once it’s created. I have another blog post where I discuss some of the problem based learning content I'd like to create to compliment the Moodle - Khan Academy clone combination.
